Knight in Chester
by Marla Fair
Summary: A Gothic tale of vampires, lost loves and old loyalties that leaves no one untouched in 18th C Chester, Pennsylvania. Crossover between the 1970's TV series Young Rebels and 1990's Forever Knight. Set completely in the 18th century.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Knight in Chester

**Author:** Marla F. Fair

**Rating:** PG

**Genre:** Action/Adventure

**Summary:** A Gothic tale of vampires, lost loves and old loyalties that leaves no one untouched in 18th C Chester. Crossover with the TV series Young Rebels and Forever Knight.

* * *

Disclaimer: The following work has been created for the enjoyment of fans. The rights to the characters initially created for the Young Rebels series belong to those who created them. All other characters are my own. No copyright violation is intended.

To paraphrase a very wise author, Eric Sloane: The places and people in the following story have been represented accurately to the best of my ability; yet my writing is supposed to be a tale, and as in any historical novel, my own imagination has blended with fact to create poetical reality.

* * *

**Prologue**

Another night. Another death. And so it goes….

Another month. Another year. Another century. And so it goes. And goes. And goes….

Will it never end?

I left Janette and LaCroix behind. I do not know how long I can elude them this time. I need them and I hate them. Especially _him._ There was so much blood on the battlefield, I pray they may be satiated and sleep. I pray that in their contentment they will forget about me. That they will not think to look for me in this tiny burg. That they fail to remember I exist.

I pray….

And yet I know my prayers, as always, will go unanswered for I have no right to pray.

None at all.

Ahead of me there is a light. A candle burning in a window, an offer of shelter to the wayfarer such as me. Hospitality. A room. Bread and wine. I will ask, 'How can I repay you?' 'A coin', they will say. 'The work of your hands.' Or, 'As we have done to you, do you unto another.'

And how _will_ I repay them? 'A word of advice, my friend. Lock up your daughters', I will say, and 'Do not grow too close to me.' Shall I tell them that their kindness will most likely be repaid in blood?

Theirs and their children's.

No. It is best if I simply stay away. I can 'repay' them best by never darkening their doorstep. I can repay….

Would that I could – repay.

The city of Chester, Pennsylvania is like an ant hill when compared to the mountains of London and Paris where I have walked. Perhaps LaCroix and Janette will not think to look for me here. And even if they do, there will be little chance to feed. Everyone knows everyone. There are few strangers or vagrants. Too many deaths would be suspicious and they would not want that. They do not want to die –

As I do.

But I am weak and the dawn is coming and I must seek shelter from the sun.

I am so weak….

There _is_ one prayer I will pray. It is not for me – so perhaps He will listen this time.

God, protect those who will give me shelter and shield me from the dawning light.

Protect them from _me._

**Chapter 1**

Elizabeth stirred and closed the book she had been reading when the knock came at the door. Her uncle was away and she had agreed to house a meeting of the Yankee Doodle Society at the farm. A contingent of Redcoats, headed by several high-ranking officers, had settled in the town and some suspicion had fallen on Henry when a man known to be a rebel spy had been seen leaving his apothecary shop late in the evening. The irony was the man had come for a much-needed remedy, knowing nothing of Henry's involvement in the Cause. But for the moment Jeremy thought it better that they meet out of the town – and out from under the Redcoat's turned-up noses.

Picking up the single candlestick she had left in the window as a signal, Elizabeth went to the door and opened it, smiling broadly. "Jeremy, I thought you'd never – "

It wasn't Jeremy. A handsome stranger, blond as the one she loved but older – closer to Robert's age – stood on the stoop. Even by the light of the candle she could see the man was extremely pale and in need of rest. His breathing was labored, and he constantly glanced over his shoulder at the east and the advancing sun, as though dreading the dawning day.

"Oh, you're not Jeremy," she said, feeling stupid.

He had a lovely smile. "No, though by your greeting I might wish I was, Madame…."

"Elizabeth Coates."

The stranger removed his tricorn hat and executed a short bow. He was cloaked, but she could tell by the cloth that showed on his exposed arms, his clocked stockings, and the chased silver buckles at his knees and on his shoes, that he was wealthy. "Allow me to introduce myself," the man said. "I am Nicholas Knighton, and I am pleased to meet you, Goodwife Coates." His pale blue eyes searched the interior of the room behind her. "Is your husband in?"

She laughed. "It is '_Miss_' Coates. I am afraid, sir, I have no husband. And my uncle is away."

He seemed distressed. "You are alone then?"

Elizabeth knew it was not wise to admit so, but she did. There was something about the stranger that seemed to command trust. "Yes."

Nicholas replaced his tricorn hat. "Then I must go. It is not proper or fitting for you to be seen speaking to me, let alone for me to ask shelter of you. Goodnight, Miss Coates."

"But sir, you are miles from town. The nearest shelter is several hours away and you seem weary," she protested.

He glanced over his shoulder again at the mounting light. "Still, I cannot compromise the reputation of a good woman. I will find some hole or cave to rest within. Good day."

Elizabeth watched him turn and start down the path. She didn't understand why, but something in her didn't want him to go. Something compelled her to call him back. "Sir!"

Nicholas turned and looked. "Yes?"

"What of the barn? You are most welcome to sleep there. I can give you a blanket."

He looked at the sun again and then back at her. A smile, shy but grateful, lit his pale face. "That would be acceptable. Thank you."

"Just a moment." Elizabeth crossed the room quickly to the wooden chest that rested against the wall and drew out two blankets, one wool and the other linen. She returned to the door and stepping out, handed them to him. "It is not the Chester Inn," she admitted, "but it is warm and no one should disturb you."

Nicholas bowed again. "I thank you for your Christian kindness to a stranger, Miss Coates." He turned away but then seemed to think better of it. Pivoting, he met her stare. "There is _one_ more thing, Miss Coates…."

Elizabeth blinked…and found herself standing outside on the flagstone path. The light was dawning in the east and she had forgotten her shawl. She turned back to the house to fetch it, and then suddenly couldn't remember having walked out of the door – let alone what she had left the house to find. Puzzled, she stood motionless on the path until a hail from the road that ran in front of the house called her back to the present. She looked up to find Jeremy, Isak, and Henry emerging from the trees.

Elizabeth raised her hand to return the greeting and then, with a longing glance at the barn, went to meet them.

Nicholas Knighton watched Elizabeth Coates from within the barn, still fighting the instincts within him that called on him to take her, to meet his needs – to slack his thirst. He had made a decision some years before that he would only feed on vagrants or the dying, but it was hard. _Very_ hard. Having fed on the battlefield, he could resist the urge tonight – resist the sight of the blood pounding through the veins in her delicate white throat – but he dare not stay any longer. When the sun set and her sister-moon arose, the vampiric hunger would take him again and it would be harder to control.

Impossible, perhaps.

Elizabeth was _very_ beautiful.

Nicholas smiled as the dark-haired beauty hesitated on the flagstone path. He had mesmerized, and then instructed her to forget him. He would sleep in the cool black nothingness of the barn's tenebrous shadows through the day, and then flee as the sun set. She need never know he had been there. All Elizabeth would be left with was a shadow of regret, a hunger of her own – a longing for something she did not understand that would vanish with the night.

Along with him.

The sound of several male voices caused him to retreat from the barn door and become one with the shadows that lined an empty cattle stall. Just as he did the door opened and three men walked in. The first was a black man with powerful arms – most likely a blacksmith or wheelwright. When the black man spoke, his voice rang like a mellow bell. The second was a portly man with glasses, perhaps in his early twenties. Nicholas grinned. If he had not known better he would have thought it was his friend, Benjamin Franklin. But the inventor was older and still in France, enjoying the ladies and the fine wines, far away from this bucolic setting. The third was a tall man, blond as he, with a commanding voice and way. The trio headed for the hay room close by the cattle stalls and took seats on two of the bales of hay.

Moving silent as the shadows that were a part of him, Nicholas joined them and listened.

"Henry, I think you should leave town. You are under suspicion. Even if you do nothing wrong, it is likely they will take you. You know the British."

"Yes, I do," Henry answered, exasperated. "And Jeremy, I can tell you the worst thing I can do is run! If I run, they will judge me guilty. If I stay and continue to perform my duties as though I have nothing to hide, they will soon forget about me."

Jeremy shook his head. "I disagree. Isak?" he asked the black man.

Isak was quiet a moment. Then he nodded. "The British have _long_ memories, Henry. Long as the ropes they use to hang us rebels with."

"But…." Henry paused, defeated. "But where would I go?"

"To the General's camp. You would be safe there."

"No!" Henry stood up. "I will not burden General Lafayette with my problems. He has more than enough to worry about with this British regiment in the town. No, Jeremy!"

Lafayette? Nicholas frowned. Lafayette…. It could not be Michel. He had seen that brave man die on the battlefield some twenty years before. No. This must be the son. Gilbert, that was his name. Gilbert had only been a babe when Nicholas had visited castle Chavaniac to take the fateful news to Michel's wife.

What was the boy doing here in America?

"Maybe the General could use your help, Henry," Isak suggested. "He has many wounded men and still suffers from the hurt he took at Brandywine, and on the hill shortly after. I am sure another man with medical knowledge would be welcome in the camp."

"Yes, Henry. You could do him a service. Think of that," Jeremy added.

Henry was silent for some time. Then he asked, "How long would I have to stay? The regiment may be in town a long time."

"Long enough to be safe, but not so long that they recruit you." Jeremy clapped him on the shoulder. "We need you, Henry. Here, with us."

"Yes. What of the business we came here to speak of? The reason for putting Elizabeth out so?" Henry said. "And where, may I ask, is she? Why has she not joined us?"

"Elizabeth is finishing up in the house before her uncle's return. She will join us if she can," Jeremy answered. Then he went on. "There is a rumor but a few days old, that an assassin has been sent from England to seek out rebel leaders and to kill them. General Washington fears for Lafayette, though truth to tell, it has not been our military leaders who have paid the price, but those civilians who work in secret. This man, this mercenary, seems to be able to ferret them out, to find them as no other can. Seven have died so far, from Philadelphia to here."

"Then Jeremy, it is _you_ who are in danger!" Henry declared.

The blond shook his head. "No one knows who Yankee Doodle is. How can I be in danger? You need not fear for me. But our brothers in the Cause, those who work in Darby and Marcus Hook and the towns beyond, _these_ we must warn. And offer them protection. First we need to meet with the General and see what men he can spare." Jeremy turned to Henry. "We can drop you off and then be on our way."

"Jeremy, no! If your life is in jeopardy – "

"I tell you, it is not. Unless the man speaks with the spirits of the dead or can force a man to tell him his closest secrets, or can read a man's mind – how could anyone know? No one knows I am Yankee Doodle but you two, Elizabeth, and those in the General's camp. I am safe. Our other friends are not." Jeremy grinned. "Unless one of _you_ means to betray me!"

Nicholas shifted in the shadows. It had been evident from the beginning that the man called Jeremy was the leader of these three. But Yankee Doodle? He had heard that name. A young man from Chester he had met on the road had spoken glowingly of a hero who had inspired him to serve in Washington's army. A Patriot named Captain Yankee Doodle.

So _this_ was he. Nicholas shook his head.

So very young.

Isak crossed to the blond man and placed a hand on his arm. "You know, Jeremy, that we will never betray you. But there are other men who might suspect. Perhaps it is _you_ who should remain in Lafayette's camp."

Henry's smile was triumphant. "Yes! I agree."

Jeremy fell silent, hoist by his own petard. "All right," he said at last. "You have me. If there is to be danger for one, then all three must face it. I needs must go home, my father expects to find me in bed."

"And I have a client who is to call for the parts for his wagon," Isak said.

"Henry?" Jeremy asked.

"A few loose ends. I can have them tied up by sundown."

"Then it is agreed. We meet at sundown. We must go to the General and tell him what we know as soon as we can, and find out what intelligence he has in return. Yes?"

Henry and Isak nodded. As all three headed for the barn door, Isak asked, "Do you know the name of this assassin, the one who is coming to Chester?"

Jeremy frowned. "It is not an English name. Though I am not certain if it is French. LaCroy? LaCrosse…."

Nicholas stiffened.

LaCroix.

"Why do you bother with these petty little squabbles, La Croix?" Janette du Charme tilted her stylish hat to the left and adjusted the ribbon tie under her chin. She was dressed in a heavily embroidered gold satin sacque gown with a pair of narrow basket hoops beneath. While she admired the men's clothing of the age, these four foot wide dresses had to be one of the more peculiar feminine ideals of beauty. She sighed and said aloud, "The kirtle of the Middle Ages with a simple linen chemise was so much easier to manage."

"Complaining again, my dear?" LaCroix stood before the window, watching the sun set. He finished fastening his sword belt and then walked to her side. Taking her hand, he kissed it, nipping her knuckles.

She grinned as he tasted her blood. "Well, why not, when I am so expert at it?"

LaCroix wiped his lip with the tip of his little finger. "A thousand years, give or take a few, does tend to make one perfect at most everything."

Janette laughed. "Except for keeping track of Nichola…."

LaCroix growled. "Nicholas is a child. A very _ungovernable_ child. One who deserves to be punished."

Janette pulled free. She walked to the mirror hanging on the wall of the room they shared in the Chester inn and sighed. "I do _so_ wish I could see my reflection. Just once. It is so hard to know if one has one's hat straight…."

"You look lovely. Perfection does not need to preen, my pet." LaCroix wagged a finger at her. "But you will not distract me so easily. This has to stop. First England, then the incident in Auvergne, and now this. When I agreed to bring Nicholas over, I had no idea he would prove so….irritating."

"But you love him, is this not true?"

"We prove our love by administrating discipline," LaCroix snarled. "No one likes a willful child, Janette."

"No." She tossed her cloak about her shoulders. "But they are, often, the ones held most dearly to the heart." Janette frowned and indicated his crimson coat with a nod. "You mean to draw Nichola out by this…charade?"

LaCroix was dressed as an English General. The uniform had come from a man the ancient vampire had drained dry on the battlefield. He looked quite handsome, though she had to smile at the powdered wig that covered his usual short white hair. The wig made LaCroix look quite the 'dandy'.

If a dangerous one.

"Charade? You wound me, my dear Janette. I am offering my services to weed out the roots of this Rebellion." LaCroix growled, "America – like Nicholas – does not seem to appreciate the hand that feeds it."

"Nichola, like America," she said softly, "only wants the freedom to make his own choices."

LaCroix caught her hand and bent it back. "The choice has been made for both. By me. Neither he, nor this weak ungrateful nation will be free. Not if I have anything to do about it!"

Janette grimaced. Immortal she might be, but LaCroix – who had created her – still had the power to hurt her.

And to hurt Nicholas.

LaCroix released her and reached for his cloak. Then he offered her his arm. "We are keeping our host waiting, my dear. It just isn't done, don't you know?"

Janette nodded. They were on their way to the house of the Mayor of the town. The old man, Samuel Larkin, had graciously invited them to supper. She glanced out the window and smiled at the last rays of the dying sun.

"Night has come," Janette whispered as she took LaCroix's arm.

He sneered. "Time to feed."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"And where would you be going, young man?"

Jeremy halted with his hand on the door latch. "To the tavern," he lied, and then added a sprinkling of truth, "to meet with Henry."

"That can wait. I need you here. Just for an hour or two."

Jeremy frowned. He knew his father was expecting guests. Goodwife Stapleton, whom they sometimes hired to do domestic chores, had been in the attached kitchen cooking all day long. The table was set for six. Four guests and, apparently, his father and him.

"What has this to do with me?"

His father shook his head but said nothing.

"Father?"

"Jeremy, I am an old man and have witnessed many things in the long years I have walked upon this earth. In my youth I was not quite so callow as you, but I had my moments." A wistful smile crinkled the edges of his father's pale blue eyes. "When I was a young man, there was a woman…."

"A woman?" Jeremy asked with a smile. "You mean, mother?"

"Oh, no. Not your mother, God rest her soul. This woman was nothing like your mother. I met Jean one moonless night at a tavern while still in England. This must have been more than forty years ago. She was dark and beautiful. Mysterious." His father glanced at him, chagrinned. "All of the things a young man wants who thinks foremost with parts _other_ than his brain. We flirted with love for a few glorious weeks late one summer. A tryst was set…." His father paused and then finished with a shrug. "I kept the appointed hour, but she did not. As quickly as she had appeared, Jean was gone."

"And what has this to do with tonight's dinner party?" he asked.

His father appeared shaken. "Jeremy, I thought I saw her again today. On the arm of one of the officers."

"She married an Englishman? Who is now here, in Chester?"

"No…. I mean…. I don't know." Jeremy watched his father as he walked to the hearth where he picked up his pipe and tapped the stem against his hand nervously. "Perhaps it is her daughter. The woman who comes tonight cannot be more than twenty-five. Jean du Charme would be nearer sixty."

"Du Charme? She was French?"

His father nodded. "I am afraid seeing this young woman has…unnerved me for some reason. I would appreciate your company tonight, my son."

Jeremy glanced out the window. The sun had just disappeared behind the houses that lined the opposite side of the street. The moon had not risen and it was not yet dark. Henry and Isak would wait a few hours before becoming concerned. And if they went on to the General's camp, he could follow in his own time. His father did not often ask anything of him. And the older man seemed truly disturbed.

"Very well, Father." Jeremy looked down at his soiled cuffs and breeches, and then started for the stair. "If we are to entertain a lady – let alone representatives of His Majesty's Royal Army – I think I had best change."

"The blue suit, I think," his father said absently as he lit his pipe. "The one that belonged to Robert."

Jeremy halted. It was an odd request. Robert had not been dead for many days. "The blue suit?"

Samuel Larkin nodded his head. He drew on his pipe and blew out a long puff of smoke. "Jean liked me in blue."

Henry's head came up from what he had been doing and he looked at the locked door of his apothecary shop. The work day had ended and he was making ready for the time they would spend away, packing medical supplies as well as several Latin texts and a few additional books for light reading. He panicked at first, fearing it was the British come to take him, but when he looked more closely, he could see the stranger who stood on his stoop appeared to be a Colonial. The man had a pleasant face framed by chin-length tousled blond hair the color of wheat. He was dressed in a dark cloak and wore a tricorn hat on his head set at a jaunty angle. The only thing that marked him as distinct from the majority of the inhabitants of Chester was the cut of his cloth and the elegant silver stickpin at his throat. The head of the pin appeared to be a ruby or garnet, and was very large and ostentatious.

Henry thought about making a pretense that he was not in, but a sense of urgency about the knock and his own pricked conscience would not allow it. Someone might be in desperate need. Fear for his own safety was hardly reason enough to turn his back and endanger the life of another.

Henry closed the valise that held his books and remedies. Leaving it on the counter, he crossed to the door. Opening it, he asked the stranger, "May I help you, sir?"

"You must let me in," the man insisted, his voice pitched low.

"Is there an emergency?" he asked.

"No. No. But you must let me in."

"I am afraid, sir, that unless this is an emergency the Apothecary Shop is closed." He began to shut the door. The man stuck his hand in the opening to prevent it. Henry winced and began to apologize even as the heavy wooden door closed on the stranger's flesh and bone. "Good Lord, sir! I did not mean – "

Henry fell silent. With his other hand the stranger had pushed the door open and entered. The hand that should have been crushed, was whole and unharmed.

"Who are you?" he asked, falling back.

"A friend," the blond man answered. Then he caught him by the sleeve and asked, "Your name is Henry?"

He nodded. "Yes. Henry Abington."

"You are part of a secret society, along with a man named Jeremy, and another known as Isak?"

"Sir, I have no idea…what…you…are…."

Henry's protest faded as he met the stranger's intense stare. As he watched the man's clear blue eyes seemed to change and grow a hideous yellow-green. There was a moment when the stranger's gaze went to his throat and Henry became aware of the blood pounding through his own veins and of the steady, living rhythm of his heart. A moment when he grew afraid – _very_ afraid – but it faded as the man began to speak quietly, calmly, easing his fear.

"You will tell me everything," the stranger said, his voice gentle but firm. "Do not be afraid. I mean you no harm."

"Who…are…you?" Henry asked.

"It doesn't matter. Tell me who _you_ and your friends are. And what connection you have to the Marquis de Lafayette."

And so Henry told him. Everything. About the day they had formed the Society and forsworn family and friends for the Cause. About that afternoon on the Brandywine field when they had met the young major-general from France. About their alliance, and their many adventures since. He told him about Jeremy, about his secret identity of Captain Yankee Doodle – just as he had sworn he would never do – and felt no sense of betrayal in doing so.

The stranger fell silent for some time, as if mulling over his words. "You and your friends are very brave, my young friend," he said at last, "but against the enemy that now assails you, bravery means nothing. Honor, duty – decency – these words mean _nothing_ to LaCroix. Worse than that, they are a _reason_ to kill."

"La…LaCroix…." Henry stammered. "The…assassin?"

The stranger lifted his hand and passed it over Henry's eyes, drawing down his lids. Then he spoke close to his ear, his voice pitched low, its tones silken and seductive. "Tonight Henry Abington, you were packing your things. There was a knock on the door."

"A knock on the door," Henry repeated.

"It was your old college professor, Nicholas Knighton, whom you have not seen for many years."

"Many years…."

"Professor Knighton is a champion of the Cause. At the school you attended – " the man paused, waiting.

"Harvard. I went to Harvard."

There was another pause. When the stranger continued, his tone was slightly impressed. "At Harvard it is well known that Professor Knighton is a patriot. In fact, in secret he has aided the Rebel cause. He is a rebel leader and, as such, is in danger from this man, LaCroix. The professor has come to you with news to aid you in defeating him, and needs your help as well, to remain free and alive."

Henry nodded as the images formed in his mind – himself and the professor, their long discussions while walking on the green, the joy of debating in class, the friendly nights at the pub. "Yes…."

"And one thing more, Henry."

"Yes?"

"Professor Knighton is not a well man. He suffers from a rare disease which renders him unable to sustain long exposure to the sun. If he cannot remain indoors or in a shadowed place during the daylight hours, a severe bleeding occurs under his skin, as well as swelling, faintness, and an inability to breathe. These reactions _are_ life-threatening."

"Must stay…out of…the sun."

"Yes. And now, Henry Abington, what is my name?"

Henry moved his head slowly. He looked at the blond man and blinked. Then a broad grin split his face. "Professor Knighton, it is good you have arrived!" He frowned as he glanced out the door. Night had fallen like an inky blanket. Clouds filled the sky, shutting out the moon and the light of the stars. "The others will be waiting. We must make haste."

"Henry –"

He had turned to pick up his valise. Now he looked back. "Yes, Professor?"

"You are no longer a school boy. It is Nicholas, please."

"I couldn't…."

His professor smiled. "Yes, you can. If we are to be comrades in the Cause, then we must be friends – not master and student. Agreed?"

Henry stared at the older man's hand and then shook it. "Yes. Very well." He lifted the valise from the counter and then pulled his key from his waistcoat pocket. "After you, sir…Nicholas."

He remembered the professor's smile. It was warming. The older man favored him with it as they stepped out into the night. "Now, Henry, you must tell me all about what you and your young friends have been up to. And about this young General…."

"Lafayette?" Henry nodded. "Indeed, Nicholas, he is the gift of divine Providence to the Cause…."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, come in," Samuel Larkin said welcoming their guests, "Dear Lady. Come in. Come in."

Jeremy watched his father closely as a pair of Redcoat officers and a slender dark-haired beauty with pallid skin, ripe red lips, and a lithe form wrapped in a golden silk gown crossed the threshold and entered their home. There were only three in the party. One was missing.

"This is my son, Jeremy Larkin," his father said, introducing him as he stepped back to admit them. "And I am Samuel Larkin, the mayor of Chester."

"Major Bartholomew Spebbington and Lieutenant-General Mereworth Crawley," the first man announced. "And this is Janette Cheverell. Her companion sends his regrets for missing supper and says he will join us as soon as he has completed his business."

"We could hold the meal," his father offered as he helped the young woman remove her cloak.

Jeanette smiled prettily. "Lucien will have found his sustenance… elsewhere. There is no need."

As she straightened her skirts and then removed her hat, Jeremy moved forward to take it. "Allow me, Madame."

Jeanette frowned as his fingers touched the hat's brim. She cocked her head and stared at him. "Do I know you?" she asked. "There is about you, something so _familier_."

Her light French accent made her even more charming. "No, Madame. I am afraid not," Jeremy answered as he moved to place the hat on one of the pegs by the door.

"Are you certain?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Henry! Isak! I am truly sorry," Jeremy exclaimed as he arrived at their rendezvous. "I pray I have not caused you worry. My father made a request of me which I could not refuse, and I have only now been able to get away. It turns out it was for the best. There is something I must discuss with–"

Jeremy paused as his friends turned toward him. They were meeting in one of their usual places, just outside of the town on the way to the Coates' farm. The moon had broken through the clouds at last and it shown down on the small glade they occupied. Isak Poole was a large man, strong and well-muscled with his profession. When he shifted, Jeremy saw that behind his solid form there was another man.

A stranger.

He frowned. "What is this?"

Henry's round face lit with delight. "Jeremy! We were just speaking of you. Come! Come and meet Professor Knighton." He turned to the stranger. "Nicholas, this is Jeremy. The one I told you about."

The stranger stepped forward and held out his hand. "I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Larkin."

Nicholas Knighton was blond as he, though his hair was tousled and seemed to defy containment. A portion of it was pulled back in a tail, but several long wisps had broken free to plague his pallid cheeks. The moonlight painted him an invalid, as if he had not seen the sun in decades, but the surety with which he moved and the impish light that shown from his eyes declared him a robust man in the prime of life. Professor Knighton looked to be about thirty-five and was obviously a man of some wealth. His clothes were cut from an expensive cloth; the waistcoat that showed beneath his coat studded with pearl buttons and worked with precious silver thread. At his neck he wore a sterling stickpin with a ruby head the worth of which, most likely, could have bought any farm in Chester.

Jeremy took his hand.

It was cold.

As he opened his mouth to return Knighton's greeting, still puzzled by the stranger's presence among them, Jeremy experienced a sense of spiraling down – as if he were on the edge of fainting. Then someone – or some _thing_– caught him and held him up and began to speak softly, as a mother does when her child is on the edge of sleep.

_Jeremy. You will not be afraid. You will not question who I am. You will trust me._

_Implicitly._

Jeremy shook himself and released the stranger's hand. "Sir, I…."

Nicholas Knighton was frowning. "Mr. Larkin, is all well with you? You look a bit peaked."

"I am fine, sir." He ran a hand over his face. "What brings you to us?"

"This is an old friend of mine, Jeremy," Henry jumped in. "As I said, one of my professors from Harvard. Nicholas was known there for his outspoken commitment to the Cause. In the time I have been away from Massachusetts, that commitment has grown from passion into action." Henry drew closer and lowered his voice. "Nicholas is one of those whom this General LaCroix has hounded and tries to destroy. He is on the run."

Nicholas nodded. "I came to the Apothecary shop last night seeking Henry. And through him, your Society. I have…knowledge about LaCroix that may aid you in saving lives."

"Your own included?" Jeremy asked.

"What's wrong, Jeremy?" Isak asked from the sidelines. He had been standing, listening to their conversation but saying little.

He turned to his friend. "Isak, you are not usually so trusting on the instant. What is different this time?"

The black man beamed. "There's no reason to be afraid, or to question who Nicholas is, my friend. We can trust him. _Implicitly_."

A shiver snaked down Jeremy's spine as Henry nodded in agreement. These were the same words he had heard, just now, in his head.

What was going on?

"Permit me to explain as best I can," Nicholas Knighton offered. "Lucien LaCroix is an old…acquaintance of mine. A mentor, in fact, though I hesitate to put that word to one so evil. A brilliant man, but one whose brilliance has compelled him to place himself among the gods. Lucien believes the common man fodder for his schemes. He abuses and uses those he thinks below him, as if they were _nothing._." The elegantly dressed man paused. "I owe him much, but I will not stand by while he uses his power and influence to destroy good people and to bring this fledgling nation to ruin. I will not!"

Whatever else he might be, this Professor Knighton was passionate.

"You echo our sentiments indeed then, sir," Jeremy said quietly.

"The professor is anxious to meet with the General," Isak interjected. "It seems he knew Lafayette's father."

Jeremy's eyes returned to the stranger. Professor Knighton had a boyish charm that made him appear much younger than his years. At most he might have been thirty-six or seven. If so, he would have been about sixteen when the young Marquis was born. It was possible.

"How, might I ask?"

"I lived in England at that time and journeyed frequently to France. I met Michel and his young wife at court. As I said, LaCroix was my teacher. He saw that I had the finest education possible. The Seven Years' War was the blade that finally parted us." Nicholas's eyes grew distant with the memory. "LaCroix supported the English Cause while I chose to fight for the French and my friends."

"But he has a French wife," Jeremy countered.

For a moment the man seemed surprised. Then he smiled and agreed with a nod, "Jeanette is LaCroix's companion, not his wife. She was born in France but has spent most of her life abroad. She claims no nationality. Like LaCroix," he said, his voice tinged with regret, "Jeanette does what is best for _Jeanette_. May I ask how you met her?"

"At my father's house, this night. At supper."

Nicholas looked surprised. "Supper?"

"With two British officers and this man, Lucien LaCroix. I agree with you, sir. The man is evil."

"Did you…speak with him?" Nicholas asked.

"More with the lady." Jeremy shook his head but went no further.

"Yes? What is it? Tell me."

Jeremy felt that tug – the sinking feeling again as if Knighton could somehow compel him to answer. He resisted it more easily this time. Keeping his suspicions to himself, he answered only, "A curious thing. My father was certain he had met Jeanette before in England, some forty and more years ago when he was a lad about my age."

"You don't say?" Nicholas smiled that smile again – disengaging and distracting. "That would make Jeanette seventy or so? A well-preserved woman for her age, would you not say?"

Jeremy sensed there was more to Henry's professor and his one-time friends than met the eye, but he had no proof. For now, having Nicholas Knighton close at hand where he could watch him seemed the best – and only thing he could do.

Still, he hesitated at taking him to the General's camp.

"Professor Knighton, if you would excuse us a moment." Jeremy gestured to Henry. "I would like to speak to my companions alone."

The elegantly dressed man nodded. "Certainly. And it is Nicholas. Please."

"Nicholas."

"I will just avail myself of some of that coffee brewing on the fire. If that is acceptable?" he asked Isak.

The black man nodded with a grin. "We'll join you in a moment."

When Knighton had departed and his two friends turned toward him, Jeremy was taken aback. Both were angry.

"What do you mean questioning the Professor's intentions?" Henry growled. "I told you he is my trusted friend."

"You are too suspicious, Jeremy," Isak was exasperated. "This man is here to help us _and _the Cause!"

"But what do you know of him, really? Henry, that was years ago. Do we have word from any of the General's men? Did he carry a note of introduction from someone in the East? What _proof_ have you that he is not a spy for this man, LaCroix? Tonight at dinner the woman, Jeanette, mentioned a companion named 'Nichola'. And your professor has admitted to being this man's pupil!"

"And General Washington fought for Braddock once upon a time! Does that place _him_ under suspicion?" Henry countered hotly.

"Of course, not," Jeremy replied.

"Men change, Jeremy," Isak insisted. "You know that. If you cannot allow for it, then we must all be judged guilty and condemned outright."

Jeremy fell silent for a moment. He looked from one to the other. Then he asked, afraid of the answer. "Just how much have you told Knighton – about us?"

"As much as he needed to know," Henry answered, his eyes taking on the glazed look of one on the edge of sleep. "We have nothing to fear. Nicholas can be trusted."

Jeremy's gaze shot to the blond stranger who sat beside the fire. He should trust the professor, his friends said.

But could he trust his _friends_?

Sergeant Daniel Boggs stood at the entrance to his General's tent. He hesitated to disturb him. Lafayette was sitting beside his desk with his hand laying across his lap, an open letter in that hand. The courier had arrived from the port today bearing letters to most of the men. One had come to Lafayette from his Excellency, General Washington, but another had had the postmark of Paris, France. He prayed it had not brought his general hurtful news.

Still, the business he had would not wait.

"Sir?"

"It is odd, is it not," Lafayette asked without looking up, 'how the past can intrude on the present with so little warning?"

Daniel entered the tent. "The letter from home?"

"Oui." Lafayette looked at the parchment sheet and then tossed it on his desk. "A letter from a friend of my father's. He had read of my exploits in reaching America and felt I should know something about the soldier who begat me." His general looked up. "They fought together in Prussia. He wanted to let me know what kind of man Michel-Louis-Christophle-Gilbert Du Motier was."

"A good one, I am sure. Sir."

Lafayette favored him with a shadow of his usual engaging smile. "Oui. A good one." The young man seemed to shake himself then and rose from his seat. "Now, what news?"

"Nothing good, I fear. This man, LaCroix, is in Chester. He took his supper meal at the Larkins last night."

The general drew a breath and let it out slowly. "Mon Dieu! Do you think he suspects Jeremy?"

"It is hard to say. It seems LaCroix is a bit of a mystery. Our men who are undercover in the town have asked about him, and one has even spoken to him. It seems he fought with the Hanoverians in Prussia during the Seven Years' War, distinguishing himself, and was made a General when the war here in the colonies broke out. His special purpose is to ferret out rebel leaders – something I hear he is almost supernatural in his ability to do." Boggs paused. "I fear for you as well, sir."

"The Hanoverians? What was the battle, and who, his commander?" Lafayette asked sharply, ignoring that fear.

Daniel knew where his young charge's thoughts were flying. "At Minden, sir. With Captain Phillips," he admitted grudgingly.

It seemed his general's past _had_ truly come to haunt him. Captain William Phillips had commanded the battery that was responsible for Lafayette's father's death. At the Battle of Minden in 1759.

Lafayette placed his hand on the letter and fell silent for a moment, thinking. When he roused, he did not look at him but crossed to the tent door and gazed out at the night. The sky had cleared. The stars shown brightly now as did the moon, casting an argent light on an autumnal world on the verge of its seasonal death.

"Have you made contact with Jeremy?" Lafayette asked, his voice tight with unspoken grief.

"They have been laying low for a few days due to the disturbance with Masters."

"And how is Michael?"

Michael Masters was the man seen leaving Henry Abington's shop – the rebel leader who had ended there by chance.

"Away. Safe." Daniel moved to the tent opening and joined him. "But it has put suspicion on Henry. And by association, Jeremy and Isak."

"Suspicion that one of them is Captain Yankee Doodle?" his general asked, concerned.

"No. Merely that they are sympathizers. I would imagine Samuel Larkin's invitation to the British officers to dine with him was accepted, on their part, in order to foray for information. The officers were probably checking out both the Mayor and his son. Hopefully Jeremy appeared to be his usual indolent disinterested self," he added with a half-smile.

Lafayette nodded. "Tell Lieutenant Billings to keep up surveillance on this man, LaCroix. He is to report any new developments to Major Clark from now on."

"To Clark?" Daniel had a sick feeling. "Not to you, sir?"

"No." His general turned into the tent and walked to his desk and picked up the letter laying there. "You and I are going to find Jeremy and the others." Lafayette paused and then asked quietly, "Do you know Shakespeare, Daniel?"

"A bit," he admitted. "I've seen one or two of the comedies."

"But life is most often a tragedy, my friend, is it not? Romeo once said, 'For my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars, shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night's revels'. The Bard's words, but I feel in my heart that they are true." Lafayette turned and fixed him with his deep brown eyes. "Civilian attire, Daniel. Return here in one hour and we will set out."

"Sir, I _could_ go alone."

His general shook his head. "No. I do not believe in coincidence, my friend. There is something here I need to do. For my father." Lafayette folded the letter and placed it within his shirt, near his heart. "And may He 'that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sails.'"

Elizabeth tapped her fork against the pewter plate that rested before her. Her Uncle John had returned in the late afternoon. Together they had completed the farm chores, including checking on their very pregnant cow, Betsy, and then sat down for supper. For some reason her uncle's arrogant boasting and continual complaining was especially tiresome tonight. She longed to escape. Once he retired, she was going to slip out and meet with Jeremy and the others in the barn. When she had seen Jeremy in town that day he had hinted that something was up. He said if they could manage it, they would stop at the farm again and fill her in before heading for General Lafayette's camp.

It wasn't fair. She was as much a part of the Society as the three men, but most often she was consigned to waiting and wondering and watching for their return. There were times when she just wanted to chop off all her long brown hair and put on a pair of breeches and ride away with them, never to return!

Especially times like now.

Elizabeth picked up her plate and rose from her seat and headed for the table by the hearth where she kept the divided wooden tray filled with sand and an oiled cloth for cleaning the forks and knives. Her uncle huffed as she rose and snorted.

"You see, girl! I was right. You are paying me no mind. Elizabeth, what is the matter with you tonight?"

She sunk the tines of her fork into the sand and then turned to look at him. "Were you saying something?" she asked.

Adding, 'of _import_?' under her breath.

"I was telling you how I rendered aid to Major Spebbington today by putting him on the trail of that traitor, Michael Masters, who was seen in Chester several days ago."

"Uncle, you said you had seen Masters on the road," she picked up the oiled cloth. "I would hardly consider that putting someone on his 'trail'."

"Be silent, girl! I am loyal to the Crown," her uncle growled. "Sometimes I wonder about you, and where _your_ sympathies lie."

Elizabeth paused while pulling the tines through the oiled cloth. "What do you mean?"

"Ah, _now_ you listen. That boy," he said rising and heading for the rack that held his pipe, "that good-for-nothing Larkin boy! Do you know what they are saying in secret of him in the town?"

She took a deep breath to fight off her mounting panic, and headed for her uncle's plate that still rested on the table. "No. What do they say about Jeremy?"

"That he, like his brother, is sympathetic to the Rebel Cause." Her uncle used a taper to light his pipe, puffed a few times, and then muttered almost to himself, "Though if you ask me that boy has nothing more in his head than the worry about where the coin for his next pint will come from!"

"Jeremy, a rebel?" Elizabeth laughed and then turned her back on him, hiding her concern. As she began to scrape her uncle's plate, she asked quietly, "Is he in any danger, Uncle?"

"Not if he keeps his nose clean!" John Coates puffed on his pipe a few more times. When he spoke again, his voice trembled with genuine fear. "If you know anything, Elizabeth, it would be wise to tell me. This British general, LaCroix, who has come to seek out the rebels in our midst – you would not want to cross him."

Elizabeth turned and looked at him. "LaCroix?"

He nodded. "LaCroix has a reputation as a butcher. Fierce in battle and fanatical in his devotion to his work. They say he has already been responsible for the capture and death of seven rebel leaders. And he is here in Chester seeking out this 'Yankee Doodle' whose name of late has been on everyone's lips." Her uncle John moved from the hearth to her side. "So I ask you again, Elizabeth – do you know anything?"

Her heart was pounding fiercely. "No," she lied. "Nothing."

The older man stared at her for a minute and then grunted. "Well, I am off to bed then. Are you coming?"

"I need to clean up here, and then check on Betsy. Her time is close." Checking on the expectant cow was a plausible reason for spending some time in the barn. She only hoped Jeremy and the others were there already.

John Coates nodded. "See that you lock up when you come in."

"I will. Goodnight, Uncle John."

He kissed her on the hair and then turned toward the stair. "Goodnight, child."

Elizabeth watched him go and then dropped the oiled cloth and headed for the door. Catching her cloak from where it hung on a peg by the door, she threw it about her shoulders and stepped outside –

And paused.

Chewing her upper lip, Elizabeth gazed at the moonlit barn and frowned. Then she glanced back at the house. It seemed there was something she had forgotten – something important. What could it be?

As she hesitated on the flagstone path, the barn door opened and a familiar figure appeared. Elizabeth smiled and returned Jeremy's wave. Then she hurried to his side.

He caught her about the waist and gave her a quick kiss. "Is your uncle abed?" he asked.

She nodded. "I saw him up the stairs." As he put his arm around her, she asked him, "What is happening? Do you know anything more?"

Jeremy nodded. "Come within. There is someone you must meet."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Samuel Larkin started when he heard a knock at the door. At first he thought it might be Jeremy, but then realized how foolish it was to think that his son would knock. He laid the book down that he had been reading and rose wearily from his seat to answer the summons. He felt old this night – _very_ old. Perhaps it had been seeing the young incarnation of his Jean whom he had known so briefly and loved – if the truth be told – all of his life.

Laying a hand to the latch he pulled it up and opened the door. And then fell back in stunned silence.

The beautiful dark-haired woman without smiled a charming smile and cocked her head to one side. "May I come in?" Jeanette Cheverell asked, her voice smooth as honey and just as pleasing to the ears as that golden syrup was to the tongue.

"Madame, this is most improper," he managed to stammer. "I am alone."

"Oui. But I do not fear you. You are a gentleman, are you not, Mayor Larkin?"

"Your reputation, Madame…."

She laughed. A clear, high bell-like sound. "Is already made, trust me. May I?"

Samuel nodded reluctantly and stepped out of her way. When he made a motion to leave the door open, she laid her hand on his and shut it. A shiver of electricity went through him at her touch.

"Madame LaCroix…" he managed as a weak protest.

The smile returned. More coy this time. "LaCroix is but my mentor and companion. And _you_ will call me 'Jean'. Please."

"_Jean_?"

A pale hand was laid alongside his white-whiskered cheek. "Oui, Samuel. I was flattered that you remembered me."

"But how…. This isn't possible! You are young!"

His protestation fell on deaf ears. The beauty smiled sweetly as she linked her arm through his and drew him closer to the dwindling fire. Jean took his arms and lowered him, without protest, into the chair that sat before it. "You but see me with the eyes of love, mon amour perdu. Tell me, what do you remember of that summer in England?" she asked softly, her crisp blue eyes never leaving his.

"Little. Only an old man's fancies…" he answered.

"You will tell me," Jean said, her tone quiet but firm. "_Samuel Larkin, you will tell me what you remember about me…and those who traveled with me_."

"I was only a boy then, not yet Jeremy's age," he answered, his voice sounding strange in his own ears, as though it came to him through a fog. "I was assisting Master Grayson at the tavern. That was where we met. You were the loveliest thing I had ever seen – a dark beauty struck in moonlight. We walked and talked and fell in love. You traveled with two men then – one young, the other older. The young one was kind to me, though he often appeared amused. The older one," Samuel shuddered with the memory, "he was evil…."

He felt Jean's hand on his arm. "_No, you are mistaken. That was my…father. He was only concerned for me_."

"Concerned, yes." He laughed sadly accepting her explanation. "He chased me off that one day…."

"Oui. Near sunrise."

"You left the next morning." His weak and watering eyes settled on her. She was as he remembered – a dark, fiery temptress draped in fine cloth and smelling of pricey bergamot. "Why did you leave, Jean?"

Her smile was sad. "I had to. It was the only way to protect you."

"Protect me?"

"You will forget that I said that," she whispered close to his ear. "_Forget_."

He nodded slowly. "I will forget."

Jean glanced at the fire as though afraid it would rekindle without warning and then, with reluctance, took a seat on the chair Jeremy kept close by it. On her way there, she knocked the book from the table where he had placed it and left it lying on the floor. Once seated, she watched him for a moment and then asked unexpectedly.

"Where is your son?"

"Jeremy? Off on a lark somewhere."

"A lark? With who?"

He shook his head. "Who knows? Some wench. A different one this night from the night before, and the night to come."

"He is a reprobate then?" she asked.

Her tone was surprised which surprised him. "Yes."

Jean shook her dark head. "I would not have expected that," she remarked, almost to herself. With a frown she continued, "Your older son, Robert, he was one of these Patriots?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"But his younger brother does not follow in his footsteps?"

The laugh that answered her sounded as if it came from underwater. "No. Jeremy has a mind for only two things – women and wine."

"A most pleasing combination by anyone's account, _mon amour perdu_," she answered with a smile. "So it seems LaCroix was wrong. He had a suspicion your son might be the man he is looking for, the one with that atrocious appellation – _Capitaine_ Yankee Doodle."

"Yankee Doodle?" Samuel was startled, so much so that it seemed the blood rushed back into his veins and innerved him. "_My_ Jeremy!" he declared, awakening to his son's danger.

"Shh! Peace," Jean rose and came to him, laying her hand on his arm. At her touch the fog and fatigue returned. "Think of it no more. _Think of nothing, Samuel. Nothing at all." She pressed her lips to his forehead. "You will not remember that I have been here tonight. Nor will you remember ever having seen LaCroix or Nichola before. Do you understand, mon amour? Tell me you do."_

"You were never here. I have not seen these men…."

"Good." He felt Jean's hand on his face again. "I will do all I can do to protect you now, as I did then. You are a good man, Samuel. You were good to me when I did not deserve it."

Samuel felt a sudden breeze and heard a man's voice demand, "Janette!"

And then she was gone.

Samuel Larkin shook himself. He was sitting in the chair before the fire. The book he had held in his hand was on the floor. As he bent to retrieve it, he remembered he had been dreaming of Jean. It was almost as if he could feel the touch of her hand on his cheek.

Bent with age and weariness of heart, Samuel Larkin rose and headed up the stairs to his lonely bed.

Elizabeth took Jeremy's hand and let him lead her inside the barn. She nodded, acknowledging Henry and Isak who occupied the same bale of hay near Betsy's stall. Then she saw him. The stranger. He was a blond man of medium height. About thirty-five years old. With pale blue eyes and even paler skin.

A stranger she somehow seemed to know.

"Miss Coates," the man said, bowing. "I am pleased to meet you. Henry has told me about you."

She offered him her hand and shivered as he took it, not at his cold touch, but with a sudden deep and indescribable longing. "Sir," she whispered, her voice robbed of strength, "I am equally pleased to meet you."

"This is Nicholas Knighton, Elizabeth," Henry offered as he rose and joined them. "A professor of mine from Harvard."

"And a champion of our Cause!" Isak added heartily.

"Professor Knighton," she repeated. "Do I…know you, sir?"

"Nicholas, please," he answered, releasing her hand. "And no, you do not know me. This is my first visit to the Chester area."

She blinked several times. "You seem somehow familiar…."

He smiled. "I seem to cause that reaction in many people. I suppose I must have a common sort of face."

_Hardly_, Elizabeth thought. Nicholas Knighton was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. "That must be it," she agreed reluctantly.

Jeremy's arm tightened on her waist as if he sensed her thoughts, and he quickly drew her away. "Shall we get to business then?" he asked as they walked. "Elizabeth, if you will be so kind as to sit with Isak."

"Of course…."

Turning back, Jeremy glanced at the stranger and then addressed the others. "Our concern is what to do about this General Lucien LaCroix. According to Nicholas, who knows him of long acquaintance, he is virtually unstoppable. We must find something that will draw LaCroix from Chester, and then deal with him."

"That will not prove easy," Nicholas offered quietly.

"Still, it is what we must do. We cannot permit him to continue to hunt down and destroy our leaders. We cannot afford to lose such men, nor can we accept the fear his rebel witch-hunt breeds in others who might aid our Cause."

"Jeremy," Elizabeth protested quietly, already knowing his mind, "you are not thinking of offering yourself?"

He met her frightened gaze with a nod. "It may well prove the only way. Captain Yankee Doodle is a prize LaCroix might well forsake all others for."

Nicholas Knighton had been lingering in the shadows, away from the lantern's light. Now he walked to Jeremy's side and placed a pale hand on his shoulder. "You are very brave, my young friend. LaCroix may well be drawn out by such a sacrifice, but you must believe me – more than your life is in danger here. You must tread very carefully – all of you. This is nothing but a game to LaCroix. So long as the game pleases him, he will play it. But when LaCroix grows bored – he will sweep the board clean and begin again somewhere new."

Jeremy was watching the other man closely. Elizabeth had a sense that her love had not yet decided which side Henry's professor was on.

"You said this man is after you as well?" Jeremy asked.

Nicholas nodded. "I know what it is to be nothing but a _slave_ to a harsh and uncaring master – just as America is to Great Britain. I am what I am because of LaCroix, and therefore, he believes he owns me." He lifted his hand from Jeremy's shoulder and bent his fingers to form a fist. "I say we both shall be free – or perish in the attempt!"

"You know how to stop him then?" Isak asked from close beside her.

Elizabeth thought Nicholas paled – if that was possible. "Yes. That is why you must take me with you. I alone can stop him."

"A musket ball in the right spot can stop any man," Jeremy countered quickly.

Nicholas Knighton shook his head. "I do not know what you believe, Jeremy. What faith you have or _who_ it is in…." He turned and faced Henry, Isak and her. "Or the rest of you. But I can tell you that LaCroix is not like other men. He has made a pact with the Devil and is now one of his creatures."

"Surely you jest, sir!" Jeremy protested.

Nicholas grew very sober as he turned toward him. "I only wish I did, Jeremy."

"I do not believe in such things."

"Then you are a _fool_!" Nicholas snarled.

"Sir!"

"What of Oliver Cromwell, and John Ever? And others who have sold their souls for riches or eternal life? Deals _are_ made and honored. You will find LaCroix stronger, faster, and more able than ten – nay, _twenty_ ordinary men. And a hundred times more evil." Nicholas Knighton paused. "Do I take it then, Jeremy Larkin, that you have no belief in God?"

"Nay, sir. In God I believe, but not – "

"Not in the Devil? Or apparently in the Good Book? According to the Bible Lucifer Morningstar is _no_ myth."

Henry approached the pair. "Listen to Nicholas, Jeremy. It is the only way we can win. We must fight the Devil with God's tools and not the tools of men."

"What? Holy Water from the Catholics and garlic? Or salt thrown over our shoulder? You are a man of _science_, Henry. How can you support this errant nonsense?"

"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Jeremy, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Nicholas Knighton injected. Jeremy met his pale blue eyes. In them he read a kind of desperation.

"The professor's knowledge is critical if we are to defeat this man," Henry said softly, his voice containing a note of chagrin – as if he did not truly understand his own actions. "Look at it this way, my friend, if LaCroix believes this 'errant nonsense' then perhaps he believes that he can be stopped by it – whether _we_ believe it or not."

Jeremy turned to the stranger. "Are _you_ a religious man, Nicholas?"

Knighton was silent for some time. At last he answered, "I believe in evil and its presence on this earth. And it would be wise if you began to believe in it too."

"Elizabeth!" a strident voice called out, filtering through the dark night to their ears.

"That's my uncle! He must have wakened and found me not yet returned." Elizabeth rose and crossed to the door. "I will be there in a minute, Uncle John," she answered. "I'm almost finished attending to Betsy."

"Well, hurry, girl!" John Coates called back.

Jeremy followed. He took her hands and squeezed them between his own. "We must away. I know not when I will see you again. Know that I love you."

She took one of his hands and pressed it against her cheek. "I know. Take care of yourself, Jeremy Larkin." Then Elizabeth turned to Isak and Henry. "And you two, keep him from being too noble, you hear?"

As Henry assured her that they would, Nicholas Knighton grew suddenly alert. He cocked his head as if listening, and then his pale eyes grew wide. "Voices," he said, "coming this way. Men. Hide! _Now!_"

Jeremy pressed her hand again and then left her standing in the center of the barn. Seconds later it appeared she was alone. As she picked up a bucket and headed for Betsy's stall, the barn door opened and two men in uniform walked in.

Elizabeth turned and pulled her shawl close, pretending to shudder with the cold breeze that blew in behind them. In reality she was hiding the shiver of fear that ran through her.

Redcoats!

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Is this the Coates farm?" the taller of the two, an officer, demanded.

She nodded. "I am Elizabeth Coates. My uncle, John, is the owner."

"We wish to talk to him."

"He is abed, sir. Can this not wait until morning?"

The officer nodded to his compatriot. "Mackay, search the barn. And you, girl, take me to your uncle."

"Aye, Major Banks. Sir!"

The soldier saluted and set off even as Elizabeth protested, "There is nothing here, sir!"

Major Banks grabbed her by the arm and thrust her toward the door even as Mackay headed for the stall where she knew the stranger to be hiding. A second later the soldier stiffened and halted.

"Mackay! What's wrong with you?" the major called.

Mackay shook his head. "There's nothing here, Major Banks. It's a waste of our time."

"General LaCroix didn't seem to think so. Now just do…as you…were told…."

Elizabeth looked at the major. His eyes had become glazed. For several heartbeats Banks was silent and then he said, changing his mind, "Forget it. Come here, Mackay. And now, Miss, if you would take us to your uncle?"

She blinked at the sudden change of tone and intent. "Uncle John will not be happy," she said.

Banks nodded absentmindedly. "I apologize. We just have a few questions. Someone we are seeking came this way yester morn. We need to see if your Uncle saw or spoke to him."

With one last glance back to where the men were hiding, Elizabeth nodded. "Very well. Follow me."

General Lafayette and Sergeant Daniel Boggs had paused on their way for a bite of food and a hot cup of coffee to warm them. Lafayette had been uncharacteristically quiet during their journey. Daniel stared at his comrade, general, and friend and worried for him. The young man wore his feelings on his sleeve. If Lafayette was happy, everyone knew it. If he was sad, it was no secret to those who loved him. Tonight he was neither –

Tonight he was scared.

And that surprised him. "Sir, what is it?"

Lafayette started and then glanced with guilt at him. "Nothing, Daniel."

"You are not usually a liar, sir."

The young man grimaced. "Oui," he admitted softly.

"What bothers you? You seem…."

"Frightened?" Lafayette's laugh was self-conscious. "Tonight, Daniel, you do not see the American General, or even the brave young Frenchman seeking adventure, before you – but the boy from Chavaniac who grew up in the wild wood amidst the weeds and old women's tales."

"I don't understand."

The laugh came again, softer this time. "How could you? You Americans are so – no nonsense. You have little room in your lives for superstitions."

"We had our share. Don't forget Salem."

"Ah, but it is not a witch I think of this night. Nor even la Bete."

His general had told Daniel about the wolf-creature that had plagued Auvergne when he was a boy, murdering and maiming locals by the hundreds. Lafayette had even set out to kill it one night. "Then what, sir?"

At first he shook his head. Then Lafayette began to speak slowly, as if the memory was a hard one to face – and to recall. "My grandmother told a tale beyond belief – of two men and a woman who came to our house one dawning morning, seeking shelter. One was an older man who might have been the father. The other two, a dark-haired woman and a man with flaxen hair who said he knew _my_ father. All obviously noble by birth. They were exhausted and the younger man seemed injured, as if with burns. She had one of the servants prepare a room for the trio in one of the warmer sections of the manor. There were very few servants in service at the time, since the war was on and my father was gone. Grandmama said this was when I was about one year old." His voice trailed off and he fell silent.

Daniel prompted him to continue. "And? What happened?"

Lafayette shook himself. "I should not be able to remember, but I seem to. I remember my mother screaming. Close by. There was a rush of cold air. Someone else was in the room. Then two male voices arguing. Then nothing." He shuddered with the memory.

"Perhaps you only think you remember it. You said your grandmother _told_ you…."

"Not 'told'. It was something I overheard." He looked at him. "When I was two, the blond man returned. He was the one who brought the news of my father's death. I heard my grandmother speaking to my aunt after he had left the room with my mother on his arm. She said he had saved Mama's life. That an unnatural creature had come into the room that night while I lay in my cradle, bent on taking her life." Lafayette smiled, shyly, as though embarrassed for the older woman who had raised him. "Grandmama believed in the old ways – in witches and were-beasts, changelings and…the 'vampiri'."

Daniel laughed. "Vampires! Sir, no."

Lafayette nodded. "Oui."

Daniel was silent for a moment. His own people were of New England stock, such beliefs were not unknown to him, but seemed almost laughable in this dawning scientific age. "And you, sir?"

His general shrugged.

"Is this," Daniel shifted and cleared his throat, "is that what frightens you tonight?"

"I did not remember at first. But on the journey here, it has come back to me." He looked at his friend. "Do you know the name of the older man who came that night to Chavaniac?"

"How could I, sir? What was it?"

Lafayette stood up. He tossed the remainder of his coffee into the grass.

"His name means 'the cross'. It was LaCroix."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

He shouldn't have been able to remember as Daniel said. He had only been a babe in a cradle, but for years that night had haunted his dreams. Lafayette shifted in his sleep and moaned as the vision came again. The light of the full moon spilling through the heavy brocade curtains that lined the open window of the ancient manor house, his mother leaning over his cradle and then standing, the steady breeze that wafted through the room lifting her hair as she stepped into the pale argent light, making it billow behind her like a golden-red sail; the sound of an intake of breath and its release, and then a man, standing there, holding her by the shoulders.

The stranger was tall and silver-haired, well into his forties, a powerful man dressed in a suit of moonstruck black. He towered over his petite mother, Julie, dwarfing her, swallowing her whole in his shadow. Lafayette remembered wailing as a frightened child is wont to when it senses the impending loss of the one who is its life, and then he felt a calming hand and looked up into another face – a man, blond and ageless. The newcomer smiled at him briefly and then was gone.

Words. There were words he could not understand then. Words that now rang crystal clear – 'You will not take her. I will not allow it.' And another voice. 'One day you will regret this. Nichola. One day, another will pay.' He heard a fierce sort of growling, like the wild beasts in the wood tearing at one another's throats, and then…silence.

A moment later his mother sat in the chair beside the cradle. The blond man was there, holding her hand. Speaking to her softly and telling her she would be all right. Looking at him and saying, 'Everything will be all right. LaCroix will not trouble you again'

LaCroix.

Lafayette woke with a start and sucked in the fresh air as though he were a swimmer suddenly released from the hold of the depths. He trembled as he looked up at the sandy-haired man who had placed a hand on his shoulder, calling him back to the present reality they inhabited.

"Sorry to wake you, sir. It's almost morning. Time to move on." Daniel Boggs frowned. "If you don't mind my saying so, you look terrible. Bad dream?"

He nodded and answered with a sheepish smile. "Oui."

"It's only been a few hours. If you need more rest – "

Lafayette shook himself. He tossed off his blanket and rose to his feet. "No. I am fine. 'Fit as a fiddle' as you Americans say."

Sergeant Boggs was not convinced. "You want to talk about it?"

"What?"

"This dream. It seems to have left you a bit shaken. Sir."

Lafayette turned his face toward the horizon where a bloated moon slipped behind a jagged line of deep purple trees. "Can you not feel it, Daniel? There is something in the air. Something unnatural…."

His sergeant was silent for a moment. "If you say so, sir."

Lafayette laughed at his expression and placed his hand on his sergeant's shoulder. "I count on you to keep me grounded, Daniel," he said with a smile. "You are right. There is nothing to fear in Chester but what we have faced before – a ruthless Redcoat who is willing and able to do anything to end the Rebellion and keep America from becoming the free nation she is meant to be. The name of this man who is hunting the rebel leaders _is_ LaCroix, but he is said to be in his forties. The one I remember would be sixty-five at the very least. It has to be another man."

"Perhaps his son?"

He bent to retrieve his blanket. "Perhaps. The age would be about right. I do know that the LaCroix I remember was a terrifying creature."

Daniel shook his head. "Begging your pardon, sir, but you can't really remember him. You were less than two."

The vision was _so_ real that it was almost impossible to admit that truth. Still, he knew his sergeant was right. "Oui," he said softly.

Boggs looked at him. "Do your really think this man is – a vampire?"

Lafayette laughed, dismissing the notion. "Of course not. Such things do not exist."

"I am glad to hear you say it. You had me worried for a moment." Sergeant Boggs turned and headed for his own bedding. "Now we had best get a move on."

Lafayette nodded, but as he did his hand went into the breast pocket of his coat. When it emerged, a fine gilded crucifix hung from his fingers. He carried it with him always, even when travel did not allow his prayer book and other religious articles. The beaded chain that held the gracious body of the son of God broken on the cross was made of blood-red beads and about two feet long. Glancing over his shoulder to make certain Daniel did not notice, he started to slip it over his head, but then paused as something shifted in the woods, just beyond the edge of his sight. Absentmindedly he nodded as he heard his sergeant say he was going to the stream to fill their canteens.

Then, placing the crucifix back in his pocket, he went to investigate.

Samuel Larkin rose wearily to his feet, his linen handkerchief firmly planted over his mouth and nose. The girl had not been dead long, but already the scent of death was strong. Already her youthful flesh so recently pink and plump had grown gray and sagged on her bones. He could hear the townspeople murmuring, muttering – arguing – all about him. 'It must have been a wolf,' he heard one man say, 'look at her throat.' 'But where's the blood?' another asked. A third pointed out the double marks on the victim's throat and insisted someone go for the minister. The second man answered that the minister would not come.

The act, he said, and the place were unholy.

Samuel searched the faces in the crowd. They were men he knew for the most part – wise, level-headed men. Barristers. Merchants. Physicians. This heinous crime had reduced them to the level of unschooled peasants. They whispered. They pointed.

They muttered curses and prayers.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said, clearing his throat, "we must not let our imaginations run away with us. We do not want a repeat of what happened in Salem. A man has done this, not some unnatural beast."

"A man, Mayor Larkin? What kind of a man? What sort of a man kills by ripping out his victim's throat and leaving nary a drop of blood? Lift her! Look beneath!" The speaker, who was a well-known shopkeeper, shuddered. "The ground is dry."

Samuel looked down at the girl again. She had been lovely. A bonny lass, once full of life, now lifeless. He thought he had seen her coming out of one of the taverns just a day or two before. She was raven-haired, buxom, and to most men, bewitching.

"Does anyone know her?" he asked.

There was a general murmur. Several acknowledged passing her in the street. No one claimed to know her name or where she came from.

He nodded. "I agree, she is not of our town. Perhaps she was working at the inn in hopes of bettering herself. We will have to ask the tavern-keeper and see if we can locate her kin. They must be told."

One of the men, the one in fact who had proclaimed the spot 'unholy' approached him. Master Huw Gryffdd was Welsh. As a young man he had lived in Wales, but chose to stay and make the colonies as his home after coming to the country to fight in the Seven Years War. Huw was a cantankerous, outspoken man, but one of good heart.

"Samuel Larkin," he began, his words rising and falling with the Welshman's lilt, "you know as well as I do that something has happened this night which will spell disaster for the young men and women of Chester if an end is not put to it – and soon."

The mayor shook his head. "We are men of a modern age, Huw. Surely you cannot believe –"

Huw Gryffdd drew close to him. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. "I can see it in your eyes, Samuel. You know. _You_ believe."

When he had been a young man, that summer that he had met Jean, murders very similar to this one had occurred in the countryside surrounding his home town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. There was a man living there who had emigrated from Austria. He told them of a plague that had swept their mountain village, carrying off their young people.

And that some of them had come back, risen as ghoulish shadows, from the dead.

Samuel shuddered with the memory as he placed his hand on Huw's shoulder. "My friend, let us not jump to conclusions and start a panic in the town. This is only one death. Perhaps it is other than it seems."

The Welshman looked at him. "Perhaps. But I would mind that young scallywag son of yours, it is no longer safe for the young people of Chester to be about at night."

Samuel Larkin's young scallywag was not unaware of his danger, though he believed it to come from a different quarter. He and his companions had watched the Redcoats enter the Coates' farmhouse, and then slipped out of the barn and into the night. They made their way in haste, taking aim for the general's camp, though Jeremy was still uneasy with the presence of a stranger among them. Nicholas Knighton moved with the sure and certain grace of a beast familiar with the woods. While they often halted, forced to clamber with difficulty over fallen trees and tumbles of rock, the professor almost flew, unimpeded by anything in his path. Often Jeremy would find him watching them from his advanced position, waiting for them to catch up. Knighton's eyes were bright and blue, but from their depths he sensed something disturbing.

The same thing he had seen in Janette Du Charme's eyes.

A sinister kind of hunger.

A desperate kind of need.

Jeremy halted, panting. They had just finished a sprint across an open field and stood now within the shadowy embrace of the wood that masked the entrance to the general's camp. They could be no more than three-quarters of an hour away from the sentry point. It was time to decide whether or not he could trust this man. Henry was busy checking over his supplies, making certain none of them had been affected by the morning dew, and Isak was bent over a nearby stream refilling their canteens.

He and Knighton were alone.

"Nicholas?" he called, drawing the other man's attention. "Will you walk with me?"

The professor looked preoccupied. His eyes were on the horizon where the sun was just beginning to show, its dull glow painting the wheat field a fiery red in their wake. "Jeremy. My friend. How can I help you?"

"By giving me what I ask for." He tried not to make it harsh, but his words sounded so to his own ears.

Nicholas heard it too. "And that would be?"

"The truth. Who are you? What do you want with us?"

"Henry explained…."

Jeremy shook his head. "Henry repeated words given him. The same words Isak must have heard. I don't know how you have done it, but they appear to be mesmerized."

"Bewitched, you mean?" Knighton laughed. "So you think me a sorcerer?"

"I don't know what I think you. But I will not take you to Lafayette's camp until I am certain you do not mean the general harm."

"Harm? Gilbert." The blond man shook his head. "I love the boy like a son."

Jeremy thought that odd. "You said you knew his father? How?"

"I fought with Michel in Prussia, as I said. And brought word to his grieving widow of his death."

"You hardly seem old enough, sir," Jeremy countered.

Knighton smiled – that disarming smile. "Jeremy, I am far older than you think."

"Even so. What proof have I that you do not mean the general harm? That you are not the right hand of this man, LaCroix? Perhaps the other deaths of the rebel leaders have been a smokescreen to hide the British's main intent – the death of Lafayette."

Knighton seemed truly distressed. "What can I say to make you believe me? If I describe your general's home to the last degree, you will not know the truth of what I say. If I tell you how beautiful Julie du Motier was, how the light struck fire in her hair, you have no portrait to compare my words to. You will have to take me to your general to know how true are the words I speak."

Jeremy frowned. He was right.

Nicholas Knighton was silent for a moment. Then he held his hands out before him. "Bind me. Make me your prisoner. I will enter your generals camp under guard and prove my faith to you."

"Jeremy, what is this?"

Jeremy pivoted to find Henry fuming. His friend had come upon them silently. "Henry, the professor and I were just…talking."

"It sounds like more than that. What is this talk of prisoners?"

"Henry, there is no reason to grow angry. I simply seek to make certain there is no threat to Lafayette."

As Isak joined them, all but shouting, Jeremy suddenly felt the threat might not be to the general – but to him.

"Will you not let this go, Jeremy?" the black man growled. "Maybe it is you we should tie up and silence. The professor is for our Cause. Don't give us reason to doubt that you are!"

Even as he stumbled back, stung by his friend's accusations, Nicholas Knighton inserted himself between them. Jeremy watched as he glanced at the growing light in the sky again and then, dismissing whatever it was that troubled him, turned his attention to the angry pair. "Peace. Jeremy means me no harm. What he asks is reasonable. LaCroix is deceitful and would think nothing of planting a spy in your midst. How can he know I am not that man?"

"He should know," Henry snarled. "He should trust _us_."

"Trust is a dangerous thing, hard won and easily lost." Knighton locked eyes with first Henry, and then Isak. "_You will not be angry with Jeremy. It does not please me_."

The pair whimpered like unweaned pups. "Forgive us," Isak muttered.

"Yes," Henry agreed. "And Jeremy, accept my humble apologies."

The whole scene was like something out of a dream. Jeremy nodded absently as his gaze returned to the stranger among them. Professor Knighton was watching him.

"Please, Jeremy," he pleaded in a normal voice. "Trust me. I am here to help. The offer still stands. I _will_ go forward in chains."

This time there was no attempt to influence him, just an earnest plea. Jeremy pursed his lips and thought about it. Then he shook his head. "Your word is good enough for me, Nicholas.

"Now let's go and see the general."

Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, paused suddenly uncertain. He shook himself, seeking to chase the cloud from his mind. Somewhere in the distance he could hear someone calling his name, or at least calling for the 'general'. He remembered that was what they sometimes called him here, in this strange land. He glanced at the sky and saw the sun had risen, heralding a new day. Shivering with the last of the night's chill he stepped from the shadows into an open field, relishing the light, seeking to warm himself, and almost immediately felt better. Abruptly he realized it was his sergeant who called him. Daniel Boggs sounded worried.

Turning, he answered the call. "Daniel, mon ami, I am here."

Exasperated and exhausted, the sandy-haired man in frontiersman's garb broke through the trees perhaps two minutes later. Daniel stood in the shadows. "Sir! Thank God!" he proclaimed. "What happened?"

Lafayette frowned. "Happened?"

Daniel's worried look was edged with a righteous anger. "I went to fill the canteens and when I returned, you were gone. I assumed you had seen something."

The young Frenchman blinked. Yes, he remembered the camp. But he didn't remember leaving it. And yet, here he was, in the middle of the wood – alone.

Had he seen something?

Or _felt_ something….

"Daniel, I'm sorry. I don't recall…."

"Sir, come out of the light. You shouldn't be standing in the open."

Lafayette nodded, acknowledging his aide's wisdom. Stepping out of the light, he shuddered as he reentered the shadow realm of the trees. "I don't know how I came to be here."

His sergeant was frowning. "Sir, are you all right?"

"I don't know."

Daniel Boggs approached him. He placed his hand on his forehead and the frown deepened. "You're feverish. Good God, sir! You're wounded!"

Lafayette followed his sergeant's horrified stare. Daniel's gaze was riveted on his throat. He raised his hand and placed it against his skin and for the first time became aware of the blood trailing down from it onto his linen shirt and chest. As Daniel continued to question him, Lafayette stared at his bloody fingers and tried to remember what had happened. But all he could recall was being in the camp, and then, being here.

That and the scent of bergamot.

LaCroix gripped her arm unexpectedly and twisted Jeanette's slender form toward him. He wagged his finger in her face and hissed. "For shame, Jeanette! I thought you only appreciated blonds."

"A fellow Frenchman," she answered with a defiant toss of her head. "A _taste _of home."

"Who is he?" he growled. "And _why_ does he continue to live?"

She pulled her hand away from him and rolled back the glove to reveal an angry burn. "The sun. He was drawn to it like a moth to the flame. Almost as if he knew how to escape me."

"Interesting." LaCroix leaned around the tree that masked them from the pair's eyes. "What did your 'taste' teach you of him?"

Jeanette hesitated. When a vampire drank the blood of a mortal, their memories, their hopes and dreams, their disappointments and despairs flooded through them. She knew well who the slender young Frenchman was, and knew as well how much LaCroix longed to destroy his noble spirit.

Out of petty revenge.

"I did not drink enough," she answered quickly.

"Jeanette. Jeanette. How many centuries will it take for you to understand that you cannot fool me. Or deny me!" LaCroix caught her burnt wrist in his fingers and dug them into the wound. Then he dragged her backward and dangled her perilously close to a patch of sunlight puddled on the forest floor. Thrusting her injured hand into it, he demanded, "Now, tell me who he is!"

"An American general," she gasped as her fingers began to smoke from exposure to the sun's pure rays.

"Wrong! You said he was French."

"Oui. Oui! LaCroix, mercy!"

LaCroix laughed. "Mercy? But of course." He drew her arm back and then thrust the maimed and blackened stump before her eyes. "_Next_ time it will be your head. Who is he?"

Jeanette wanted to spit in his face. There were times she hated him. But other times she remembered LaCroix was the one who had made her what she was – beautiful forever.

Immortal.

"What were you doing in the woods?" LaCroix asked, suddenly changing tactics. "When I found you at the Larkin's house, I suspected you were after the boy. Did you come to the woods seeking him?"

She nodded. It was half the truth. She had been seeking Nichola and suspected he was with Jeremy Larkin. Samuel had spoken his own truth when he said his son was not Captain Yankee Doodle, but she suspected the young man with the eyes of his father's youth was much more than he appeared. Most likely Jeremy was following in his brother's footsteps. His hatred of the British soldiers who had accompanied her to supper had been clear enough.

She had sought Jeremy Larkin and through him, Nichola, but had instead found the young general and his aide, far from home. At first hunger had made her call him, and then as she broke his skin with her nails and licked his blood, curiosity when she heard him speak.

And then horror as she realized who he was.

"Jeanette, I told you that you must leave the Larkin boy alone. He would be missed." LaCroix twisted her wounded arm. "As would an American French-speaking general." He brought his face close to hers. "It's him, isn't it? Michel du Motier's boy?"

"No! No, it is not," she shouted.

"Your concern betrays you, my dear. I remember well the look you gave his father when we visited the French court. And the daggers you shot with those ice-blue eyes at his beautiful young wife. And now – like father, like the son?" LaCroix growled. "You know he is _mine_!"

Not anymore she thought. Now she had a tie to him. She could warn the young Gilbert. Direct him.

Perhaps save his life.

Jeanette lowered her head. "Of course, LaCroix. Whatever you say." Her eyes flicked to the horizon and the rising sun. "But should we not retire? You know the daylight is bad for my complexion."

LaCroix kissed her hand. Once black as coal, it had regenerated and was pink and plump as if it glowed with life –

Instead of its pretense.

"Well, we wouldn't want that, now would we?" LaCroix glanced over his shoulder and sneered as the young Frenchman leaned into his sergeant's strength and was led away from the open field, back toward their camp. "While the cats away, the mice will have their day."

"LaCroix…."

"And return to hunt another night."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"What do you mean, the general isn't here?" Jeremy felt his stomach sink to his toes as he addressed Major Andrew Clark, the officer currently in charge of General Lafayette's camp. "Where is he?"

The four of them – Henry, Isak, Nicholas Knighton and him – had entered Lafayette's camp and made a beeline for the Frenchman's tent. Jeremy noticed that Nicholas appeared decidedly relieved as he left the dawning morn behind to duck into its darkened interior, and had wondered why at the time – then he remembered Henry's words about the professor's 'condition'.

'_Professor Knighton suffers from a rare disease which renders him unable to sustain long exposure to the sun. If he cannot remain indoors or in a shadowed place during the daylight hours, a severe bleeding occurs under his skin, as well as swelling, faintness, and an inability to breathe. These reactions are life-threatening.'_

They were as well, he knew, the sign of one who was 'undead'.

A vampiri.

Jeremy scowled. This entire episode was unnerving. Now even _he_ was thinking in terms of myth and superstition. He shook himself and pinned Major Clark with narrowed eyes. "Well, where is the general?"

"He left yesterday in search of you, Jeremy, and the others," Clark answered. "I was just as surprised to see you three arrive without _him_."

"Is Gilbert…." Nicholas Knighton stepped forward. "I take it General Lafayette is well accompanied? A contingent of soldiers – or more – travel with him, I trust."

Major Clark eyed Professor Knighton as if wondering who he was and what right this stranger in their midst had to question him. But with a nod from Jeremy, he replied, "The General tends to be a bit…well…." The major resisted sighing. "General Lafayette is a man who makes his own decisions, and those who are under his command are compelled to abide by them."

"In other words, he ran off on his own?" Nicholas' pale blue eyes sought Jeremy's gaze. There was fear in them. "Jeremy, this is _most _ unfortunate. The danger to Gilbert is immense."

Clark was instantly alert. "What danger? What do you know?" The soldier added with a snarl, "Does this have to do with that monster, LaCroix?"

Nicholas moved into the center of the tent. Jeremy noticed with curiosity that he was careful to avoid the beam of rapidly advancing sunlight that fell through the crack in the tent door. "What do you know of LaCroix?" Knighton asked.

Clark bristled this time. "Who is this man?" he demanded.

Henry, who had remained silent up to now, stepped forward. "A professor and friend of mine, Andrew, come newly from Massachusetts. Nicholas is one of the men LaCroix has pursued. He has come to help us."

Isak nodded agreement from the corner of the tent he occupied.

"I have certain…knowledge," Nicholas said softly. "I know this man. I know how to stop him."

"What has this – what has _LaCroix_ to do with the General? We were told the man targets civilian agents of the Cause, not military," Clark said.

"It is all a game to Lucien. Today he fights for the British," Nicholas spread his hands wide. "Tomorrow, if it took his fancy, he would kill them and fight for you."

"Then he is a mercenary?" Clark asked.

Professor Knighton paused. Then he nodded once. "A mercenary whose price is met with blood."

Clark either missed or chose to ignore Nicholas' unusual choice of words. Jeremy did not. They echoed through his being, bringing a chill, even as the major continued to speak. "Well, even if LaCroix _could_ be bought, there is not enough money in the whole of the colonies to do so." Major Clark turned and picked up his sword and began to buckle it on. "But that is a trouble for another hour. We need to find the General and Sergeant Boggs and see what if anything has happened to –"

As the major spoke a commotion broke out in the camp, so loud it silenced them all. Jeremy pivoted on his heel and headed for the tent opening with haste, intent on finding its cause.

It perplexed him when Henry stepped in the way and barred him from reaching the door.

"Henry, what is this?" Jeremy demanded.

His friend ignored him. Henry's eyes remained fixed on the professor. "Nicholas?" he asked, as if seeking permission.

Jeremy turned to look at the elegantly dressed man. Nicholas Knighton had shifted further into the darkness that filled the tent, literally hugging its deepest shadows. "I will be fine, Henry," he said softly, "go about your business – but return to me with any news."

Frowning as he turned back, Jeremy sought Henry's gaze. The apothecary's brown eyes were curiously blank – like those of a man one catches just on the edge of sleep. "Henry?" he asked, laying his hand on the other man's shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Everything's fine, Jeremy," Henry answered as he stepped aside and permitted him to reach the tent door. "Just fine."

"I'll stay here," Isak Poole said as Jeremy threw open the tent's flap. Jeremy turned and looked back and noticed that the black man had taken a defensive position in front of the professor, as if making certain the intruding rays of the sun did not penetrate the tent's interior to reach his masked form.

Once outside Jeremy had little time to ponder the meaning of his friends' actions. The camp was in an uproar. Soldiers were yelling – shouting orders for aid and ale. The camp doctor had been called for and a man was reporting him no where to be found – which occasioned even more cries of consternation and concern. Jeremy squinted against the rising sun to see what was the matter. Then he found it – two forlorn figures at the midst of the storm.

Sergeant Boggs had returned – supporting, almost half-carrying an extremely pale and obviously ill Marquis de Lafayette.

"Dear God, sir!" Jeremy exclaimed as he pushed through the crowd of soldiers and arrived at their side. "Sir?" When Lafayette failed to answer, he turned to Sergeant Boggs and asked, "What happened?" Jeremy had noted the bandage on the general's neck, and seen the dried blood crusting at its edges.

As Boggs shook his head, the older man's concerned gaze flicked to the men surrounding them. Then he said, loud enough for all to hear, "The General took a spill, Jeremy. A branch caught him in the neck. It looks much worse than it is." Boggs nodded with relief as Jeremy slipped in and helped to support the ailing Frenchman. "All he needs is some rest."

"Henry is here, Daniel. He can take a look at the wound."

Boggs nodded again and muttered under his breath as they began to move. "All is not well, Jeremy. We need to get Lafayette inside."

As they continued toward the tent, Jeremy looked hard at his friend and commander. Lafayette had never sported much of a tan – in fact the young Frenchman seemed pale by nature – but any color he had possessed had drained away, leaving him pallid and white as a winding sheet. As he examined him, Lafayette stirred and met his worried gaze. The General favored him with a weak smile and a softly spoken, "Mon ami…."

"We'll have you inside in a moment, sir," Jeremy answered, and then called out, "Henry!"

Henry was standing near the tent. His eyes had been on its interior, but when he heard Jeremy's voice he turned and, for the first time, seemed to notice the drama unfolding before him. As if some physician's instinct was roused by the sight of the wounded man, Henry seemed to snap out of whatever dream he had been treading and rushed to their side.

"General! What happened?" Henry hovered close beside them as they walked, his fingers reaching for the soiled bandages. "Were you attacked?"

The Frenchman shook his head. "I do not…remember."

As he spoke they arrived at the tent. Major Clark stood close by the door. The officer saluted and then looked to Lafayette for orders. What he found must have given him pause, for even though he addressed the General, Clark's eyes were on Sergeant Boggs as he spoke. "Are there any orders? …Sir?"

Lafayette lifted his head but said nothing.

"Just keep guard," Boggs replied quickly as they ducked inside.

Major Clark nodded and palmed his pistol and then took a position before the tent opening as their small party made its way into the darkened interior. Once inside Sergeant Boggs deposited Lafayette on his cot and then went to fetch him some water. Before he could reach the bowl and ewer, however, Nicholas Knighton's voice echoed from the darkness.

"What has occurred? Sergeant Boggs, isn't it?"

Boggs looked, first at Jeremy with puzzlement, and then at the stranger emerging from the shadows. "And who is it that is asking?" he replied, his tone curt.

"It's all right, Daniel," Henry said quickly as he sat by Lafayette and began to peel the crude bandage away, "you can trust Professor Knighton. He's an old friend of mine, and a supporter of the Cause."

Boggs looked dubious. But then Daniel was as fierce as a father when it came to his young charge. "Professor Knighton?"

Nicholas stepped out of the shadows and held out his hand. Jeremy noticed as he advanced into the room that Isak, who had remained silent as a shadow near the tent door, stepped forward and tightly fastened the laces, closing the opening and shutting out the light.

As Boggs took his hand, Nicholas smiled that smile – the one that could have charmed King George into giving up the colonies without a fight – and said, "What Henry says is true, but there is more to recommend me. If you will permit…." With his free hand, Nicholas indicated the general. "Gilbert and I are acquainted."

Sergeant Bogg's scowl deepened. "_Gilbert_?"

At his name, Lafayette's head came up. The Frenchman's aspect startled Jeremy. It was as if all of the vitality and energy that were inherent in the man had been sucked out of him and he had been left an empty shell.

"My name," Lafayette asked, his voice unnaturally weak. "Who is it speaks my name?"

Nicholas moved to the cot and sat on the side of him opposite Henry. He laid his hand on Lafayette's arm and said softly, "You will not remember me, Gilbert, but I remember you. My name is Knighton. Nicholas Knighton.

"I knew your father."

The world was spiraling down – ever down into unending darkness. A leaden fatigue had overtaken him which he could not shake. A sense of doom – impending, inescapable – made his steps leaden, and each action useless. As he and Sergeant Boggs had approached the camp, as the sun had risen on the new day, Lafayette had felt no flicker of joy, no sense of relief, no happiness to be home. This was not where he wanted to be. That was somewhere else – with _someone_ else –

He had no idea who.

While on the road he had tried to escape from Daniel Boggs, heading into the fields for a destination he could not name. Once Daniel had caught him, he had been overwhelmed by a sense of shame. He was out of control. He was losing himself.

He was losing his mind.

Lafayette shook himself now and turned to stare at the blond stranger who had spoken to him. When he did, it seemed he saw him with someone else's eyes. A name came to him. Not a name he knew, but one his grandmother had whispered in her prayers.

"Nicholas?" he asked.

The man smiled – a disarming smile edged with concern. And then he nodded. "Yes. Gilbert. It has been many years. I am surprised you remember."

He wasn't certain he did. And yet, both face and voice _were_ familiar. "You were taller," he said stupidly.

Nicholas laughed. "You were younger. _Much_ younger. No more than two or three."

"That must have been quite an impression you made," Jeremy remarked softly from close by. "General, this is Nicholas Knighton. A friend of Henry's. A professor from Harvard."

Jeremy did not sound convinced. Lafayette watched the pale blue eyes of the blond man next to him flick to Jeremy's face, but it was only seconds before they were locked on him again.

"Gilbert," Nicholas Knighton said, his tone even…calm. "What do you remember?"

It was a good question.

What _did_ he remember?

The vision of his dream rose before Lafayette's eyes. "A warm night. An open window. My mother beside it with the moonlight in her hair," the Frenchman answered with a sigh.

Nicholas nodded. "What else?" he prompted.

Into the vision came a man – blond, handsome, with the face of an eternal child. In other words, Nicholas Knighton. Lafayette watched Nicholas put his arms around his mother's shoulders and hold Julie du Motier as she broke down and sobbed. "She is crying," he said.

"Do you remember why?"

Silence reigned in the tent. No one spoke. Henry sat, frozen, beside him. The apothecary's fingers were on his wrist, checking for a pulse. Jeremy stood close by, arms crossed in defiance – or denial. Isak remained, mute, by the tent door while Daniel lingered by the table, the heavy pewter ewer in his hands.

"Gilbert. Look. See." Knighton's tone was hypnotic; his command not to be denied. "Remember."

Lafayette closed his eyes and entered the vision, becoming a little boy again. He felt his grandmother take his hand and draw him away from the room where his mother wept. He saw the older woman kneel before him.

"This man, a friend of your father's, comes with bad news," his grandmama said. "Michel is dead."

Michel.

Lafayette remembered wondering at the time who that was.

He opened his eyes and met the worried gaze of the familiar stranger who sat beside him. "You were there," Lafayette said, "the night my mother found out that my father had been killed."

Nicholas nodded and admitted with a sigh, "I was there. On the battlefield as well. There was nothing I could do to save him."

"And so you came in penance to tell her, but…." Lafayette blinked. He seemed to recall an earlier vision – the one he had spoken of to his aide. "But you were there earlier, at Chavaniac. I can see you – from the cradle."

Professor Knighton laughed and glanced at the others as if to see who was paying close attention to their words. His boyish face fell when his eyes lighted on Jeremy. Turning back, he said softly, "No, Gilbert. You are mistaken. It was only the once. _Hear me, it was only once_. That was someone else."

Lafayette blinked and the face seen from the cradle altered, becoming another man's – dark haired, tall, and ancient as the great oaks that circled the estate. "Someone else," he echoed woodenly.

Nicholas' hand went to the wound on his throat. For a moment he examined it, and then let out a sigh of relief. His fingers lingered on the gash as though -- by sheer will -- he might make the torn skin mend. Then, leaning close, Nicholas spoke words that only Lafayette could hear.

"_Forget_," his silken voice insisted, "_forget her. You are meant for greater things. Janette has no control over you. Neither does her master. Forget_."

Lafayette blinked and forced his eyes to focus. Then he shook himself and, for the first time, seemed to wake from a dream. He was still exhausted and raw with fatigue, but suddenly – inexplicably – it felt as if he _could_ recover. His hand went to his throat and he was startled to find that the wound was less ragged, as though it had already begun to heal.

He turned and sought his 'physician's' gaze. Henry was looking at Nicholas Knighton. As Nicholas nodded, the apothecary quickly applied a fresh linen bandage to the wound and tied it tight, finishing with a flourish and a hastily spoken, "There you go, Sir. Leave that in place for a few days. Then all should be as right as rain."

Jeremy Larkin shifted uncomfortably as he watched the exchange. But before he had a chance to say anything, Knighton rose and faced him, opening his hands wide as if to show there was no weapon – no _threat_ to be found in him.

"So you see, Jeremy, what I said was true," Nicholas insisted. "I am no stranger to your general. _Now_ will you trust me?"

There was something here Jeremy did not think was true – though he knew not what it was. He looked from Henry to Isak – both standing like loyal dogs ready to do their master's bidding – and back to the elegantly dressed stranger who called himself Professor Nicholas Knighton. Then he glanced at the tightly laced tent opening and at the small dotted line of sunshine running across the floor. A thought flashed through his mind – too ridiculous to contemplate – and then Jeremy returned his gaze to General Lafayette who was rising from the cot and standing under his power for the first time since his arrival in the camp.

"Sir, what do _you_ say?" Jeremy asked as the young Frenchman reached for the cup of water offered by his aide.

Lafayette downed the drink in one gulp and then asked for more. "I say the time for talk is over. It is time for action – and for strategy. We are all together at last. And safe for now. But that is not long to be, not if this man, LaCroix, has his way."

"I can help you with that," Nicholas offered softly. "I know what LaCroix wants, and it is an end to the Rebellion."

Jeremy had held his tongue long enough. He grew tired of intrigue and subterfuge. "Tell the truth, Professor!" he demanded. "It is not the end of the Rebellion this man wants, but the end to a rebellion of one – is this not so? This is personal. Between you and LaCroix."

Henry rose to his feet, instantly angry. "Jeremy, attacking the professor will get us nowhere. You know of the Rebel leaders' deaths. How can you suggest such a thing?"

It didn't make sense, but somehow he knew it was true. Yes, rebels were dying. Yes, even Lafayette it seemed was threatened. But there was something more here, something – as Knighton himself had said – some sort of a dangerous, deadly 'game' in which they had all inadvertently become pawns.

"Professor? What is your answer to Henry's question?" Jeremy asked. Regardless of what he thought of Knighton's motives, he felt the man was not a threat to them – at least at present – and that, perhaps, he could even be a help. "_Are_ the rebel leaders in danger here? Or is the threat only to you?"

Nicholas Knighton was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his words hung in the air like the smell of ozone before a storm. "There is a very real danger, to the rebel leaders and most of all, Jeremy, to you – Captain Yankee Doodle. The battle between LaCroix and myself goes back many, many years, but it is not waged in a locked room or within a cloistered space – LaCroix will compromise and corrupt and kill whoever and whatever he needs to in order to draw me out. In order to make me…his own." Nicholas approached him and when he spoke his tone was normal – with no attempt to coerce or influence him. "We need each other, Jeremy. I can save you, and perhaps you – in turn – can save me."

"What is this man to you? This LaCroix?" he asked.

Knighton's lips smiled but his eyes betrayed him.

He was afraid.

"LaCroix?" Nicholas answered. "He…made me what I am. But as your nation, which struggles for its own identity, I do not choose to become what he would _make_ of me. Power, control, manipulation, these are Lucien's gods. I left him and he will not have it. I joined your Cause, because in it I see what I strive to be – liberated, free…whole once again." Nicholas paused. "I told you the Seven Years' War was the blade that finally parted us…."

"Yes," Jeremy agreed.

Nicholas turned and looked at Lafayette who was dousing his face with cool water and accepting a fresh shirt from Sergeant Boggs. Then he drew closer. "I stood with Gilbert's father on the battlefield at Minden and watched Michel Du Motier cut down in his prime – a young man of no more than twenty-five – with a wife and child at home. And for no more reason than he was my friend."

Jeremy paled. "LaCroix?"

Nicholas nodded. "It was his hand that did the deed. I came here, I will admit, in hopes of escaping my own doom – but now it is tied up with Gilbert's. Jeremy, I need your trust – and your help – not only for my sake, but for his. You saw the mark on his neck?"

Jeremy shook his head. "You do not claim…?"

"No. It is not the bite of the vampire, but it is the mark of, shall we say, a vampire's _attention_? LaCroix knows he is here and he will not rest until General Lafayette is dead."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Elizabeth was following her uncle.

The remarks he had made about Jeremy and the suspicions of the townspeople frightened her. And when she saw where her Uncle John was heading – toward the current home of the British army, a camp outside of town not that far from the farm – her fright turned to horror. Elizabeth hid in the trees and watched as her uncle was stopped and approached by a red-coated sentry.

Uncle John presented a note and then was passed in as if he was an old friend.

Elizabeth had passed the day in the usual way, going to market, visiting the seamstress and posting several letters for her uncle, and then she had returned home and prepared dinner. Then she had set the table and waited for her uncle's return. As night fell he had come and eaten in haste, and then hustled out again with no word of where he was going.

And so she had followed him.

Jeremy had been so careful to play his part well, to give no suspicion that he was anything but a callow youth with no use for a cause of any kind. What could have possibly clued those who suspected him into the charade? And who had her uncle spoken to? Was it really townsfolk as he implied, or was it rather the British soldiers with whom he now went to meet? Even though she believed in the Rebel Cause, Elizabeth had a hard time condemning her uncle for his loyalty to the king. There were many in the colonies who did not want to shed England's yoke, who saw the Mother Country as just that – a mothering influence, a safe harbor, and a guiding hand through the storms of life. It had all seemed so abstract before she had met Jeremy and, through him, became a part of the Yankee Doodle Society. Before young men she knew began to march off to war and not come back.

Before Jeremy's brother, Robert, had died.

Jeremy could die too.

Catching her skirts in her hands, Elizabeth rounded the tree she hid behind. It would not be easy to trail her uncle through the woods and into the British camp, but she would have to try! She had to know what he reported – and to whom. Had Uncle John believed her when she said Jeremy had no interest in the Cause? Or would he, instead, come here and report that Jeremy _was_ a rebel? Perhaps just to get him out of her life?

She wouldn't put it past the mean old selfish man she loved.

Elizabeth hurried forward, keeping sight of her uncle as he moved within the confines of the camp. At length, she came to place where a tumble of broken rocks blocked her view. Behind her she could hear a small waterfall dashing against even more stones. The British had wisely set up camp with the water to their backs so they had fewer fronts to guard and maintain. She would have to be careful. Beyond the rocks there were fewer trees and someone might spot –

"Well, well. What do we have here?" The voice was not deep, but it was male and resonated with power. "A tasty morsel on the hoof?"

"LaCroix, no!" The second voice was female, and French. "You know who she is. _She _would be missed."

Elizabeth fell back as a tall white-haired man with feral eyes rounded the rocks and approached her. "A pity. Farm girls are always so well-fed. Plump and…juicy."

In her short life Elizabeth had known bad men – men who despised and denied the light. Evil men who chose to walk a path that led to darkness, to an eternal night.

This man _was _the night.

"Who…who are you?" she asked, her voice hushed and robbed of strength.

"I might ask you the same thing," LaCroix remarked conversationally as he began to circle her. "And what you are doing here, on my property?"

"Yours?" She shook her head. This was the wilderness. "No one owns this…."

LaCroix stepped forward and caught her wrist in an iron grip. "Oh, my dear, but I must beg to differ with you," he snarled as he dragged her toward him, "I own _everything_."

"LaCroix," Janette interrupted, "remember your spy is awaiting your return." The woman's eyes flicked to Elizabeth and she saw some pity there – though whether for her current predicament or for the end about to come to it, Elizabeth did not know. "Let _me_ talk to her. You should go."

LaCroix paid her no mind. His grip tightened on her wrist. Elizabeth tried to turn away from his savage gaze, but he would not allow it. His Hellish eyes compelled her to look – to _fall_ into them. "What is your name, my dear?" LaCroix asked, his tone sweetly poisonous.

"Eliz…Elizabeth," she stuttered.

"Elizabeth, a fine name. Isn't it a fine name, Janette?"

The woman scowled. She apparently did not share LaCroix's fondness for teasing. "Go! Or get it over with," she growled.

"Just trying to remember the social amenities," LaCroix pouted. "They are so important. Without them, why, we would be – beasts!" He grinned wickedly and as Elizabeth watched, his teeth seemed to grow in length until they resembled ivory spikes. She began to shake, even as the man's eyes turned over, golden and green.

"Who…_what_ are you?" she asked, trembling.

"The stuff of your nightmares," LaCroix answered, his voice pitched low. "Now, Elizabeth Coates, you _will_ tell me what you know of Captain Yankee Doodle and his erstwhile champion, that puling French boy, Lafayette. I know _you_ know. My men told me as much upon their return."

He must mean the soldiers who had come to visit their farm. They had questioned her Uncle John and her, and then left without a word.

"I…. I don't know anything," Elizabeth answered, though it was a struggle to make certain the words she wanted came out, and not the ones he demanded.

"Then why are you here? Following your Uncle out of love for the old curmudgeon? Somehow, I find that hard to believe." LaCroix's grip bruised her flesh and threatened the bone beneath. "Now, tell me the truth! Who is Yankee Doodle?"

"No…. No! I won't…." Elizabeth was panting. "I can't…."

Janette stepped up and placed her hand on the man's. "LaCroix! You are hurting the girl," she chastised him. "Release her and go on your way! You are a _beast_!"

The white-haired man looked surprised – and amused. "Why, Janette, I do believe you are developing a conscience. Tsk. Tsk. You have spent far too much time with Nicholas."

Elizabeth didn't mean to. But her eyes betrayed her – and the man known as Nicholas Knighton.

"Ah. I see you have met Nicholas. And I see he has had the usual affect." LaCroix made a face, as if he had consumed something sour. "It seems no woman – alive or dead – is immune to dear Nicholas' charms. Are you jealous, Janette?"

The French woman made a disparaging sound. "Would I be jealous of a rack of lamb?" She rolled her eyes. "Now, let the child go!"

LaCroix pursed his lips and looked like a little boy gone bad. Then he opened his hand, so dramatically that Elizabeth fell to the ground. As she lay there, in a heap, the woman bent down and took hold of her arm and helped her to sit.

"Pay him no heed," Janette said softly, caressing her hair. "LaCroix is _une brute_! Are you all right?"

Elizabeth nodded as the other woman knelt by her side and placed a comforting arm about her shoulders. "Yes. Thank you." She glanced back at LaCroix then, and found him gone. "Where did he…?"

"Forget him. Lucien has other business to attend to." Janette smiled sweetly. "Do you think you can stand?"

She wasn't sure.

"Take my hand." Janette gripped her fingers and pulled her to her feet. "Such a pretty thing," she said as she shifted Elizabeth's hair back over her shoulders and straightened her shawl.

And then the woman licked her lips.

Elizabeth shuddered. "I should be going."

"Why? There is no one at home. Is there?"

Not her uncle, Elizabeth thought, who was probably even now meeting with that evil man. "Well…."

"Or a husband? Surely one so pretty as you is not without a lover. Oui?" Janette asked with a smile.

"Yes…no!" Elizabeth had begun to shake again. "I have a beau."

"I know you do. Mayor Larkin's handsome son, is it not? Jeremy, I believe?"

"How do you know?"

Janette's smile darkened into a sneer. "I know everything, my dear, because I make it my business to know. Also, I am of old acquaintance with your _votre amour's père_."

"Mayor Larkin?"

"You speak some French then? There is more to you than it seems. You are no simple peasant girl lusting for a romp in the hay with a feckless young man. You have plans. Ambitions…._secrets_." Janette drew close. The sneer grew menacingly as she ran her finger down the flesh of her neck. "How shall we discover them, I wonder?"

"I have no secrets," Elizabeth answered. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she had begun to feel unnaturally sleepy.

"Just enough, I think, to make your secrets mine," the French woman whispered in her ear and then she kissed the nape of her neck. "And to control you.

"I wonder, my dear, have you ever thought of wearing a scarf?"

He couldn't get them from his mind – the deaths. The death of the young woman found with her throat torn out in an open field here in Chester, and the deaths of all those young people so long ago in England, when he had been a lad about Jeremy's age.

Samuel Larkin was sitting before the fire awaiting his wayward son's return. Jeremy was often gone for days, but he usually left a note – some sign – of when to expect his return.

This time there had been nothing and he was worried.

Jeremy was a curious lad, shiftless to be certain, and yet with a certain seriousness that sometimes suggested another reason for that laziness. Perhaps it had to do with losing his mother at an early age, or with being the youngest. Maybe he had felt himself no more than a shadow cast by his brother's brilliance. Had he, as their father, favored Robert? Samuel searched his own soul and was certain he had not. But whatever it was, Jeremy seemed lost. Lost and vulnerable.

Just like all of those young people so long ago.

Samuel had been a strong healthy lad with flaxen hair himself then, self-assured and certain of his own future, working at an inn to pay for his eventual passage to the New World. The colonies called out to him – not as they did to so many, for money and the acquisition of land, but for the possession of something far more precious – personal freedom. His sons would never have believed that it was liberty that had called him to America's distant shore. By the time Robert and Jeremy knew him, he had grown into an old man – set in his ways and unwilling to change as were so many in this land once known as the 'new' England. But when young, he had been much like both boys – fiery, hot-tempered at times, and more than willing to take a chance.

And he had taken one with Jean Du Charme.

Jean had come into the inn one night in the company of two men, one older and white-haired; the other blond and about her age. She introduced them as 'family'. Soon the younger one drifted off, charmed by, and charming a young barmaid into showing him one of the back rooms. The white-haired man watched them both with pride and then left the inn to hunt – as he put it – other game.

Jean had laughed and danced, enthralling every male in the establishment with her winning smile and slender, delectable shape. Samuel had been waiting tables and when he came to hers, she looked over the shoulder of the man whose lap she occupied and winked at him brazenly. Jean smelled of bergamot and the promise of other foreign, forbidden things. Later a note was slipped to him. Jean invited him to meet her outside under the great larch that towered over the stone building, amidst a nest of budding heather and the heady scent of possibilities.

It took Samuel more time to fulfill his duties than he had hoped, and by the time he arrived at the trysting place, she was gone. A single red rose lingered with her scent, coupled with another note that invited him to meet her the next night to walk and talk beneath the moon.

The next evening Jean was subdued. She spoke of the deaths occurring in the shire and clung to him, as though frightened whatever monster prowled the woods and back alleyways would claim her too. The creature, it seemed, preyed on the young – if not always on the innocent. Three young women – a barmaid, a miller's daughter, and a strumpet – and two working men had died in the last two weeks. It was a plague of sorts….

Perpetrated, no one knew, whether by beast or man.

That night they shared a few caresses and a quick kiss, and then she fled into the night saying her family would miss her, but promising that she would seek him out again.

Over the next three weeks he saw Jean perhaps a dozen times. The image of the last was burned forever into his heart. The townspeople had at first grown suspicious and then frightened, and then become terror-stricken as more and more deaths occurred. As usual they sought a reason why they were so cursed. And one was lit upon –

The strangers in their midst.

Jean was coming to see him, but did not make it to the meeting place. He became worried and sought her out, and found her on the road – surrounded by angry, violent men who accused her of a heinous evil. That of being one of the Vampiri – the walking dead – and of living off of their children's blood. Samuel defended her at the cost of his own reputation – and possibly his life. He too was threatened. But as he was right in calling them 'cowards' and 'fools' and would not bend to their illogic, the men turned and departed with their tails between their legs. But they swore as they did that they would return another time, another day.

For both of them.

Jean had not thanked him but clung to him, resting in his strength. He spoke to her of his dreams for the two of them, of his hope for his journey to America, and of the life he planned to lead there – with her, if she would have him. As the moon waned and the pale threads that heralded the morn streaked the sky, Jean placed a finger on his lips, calling him to silence, and kissed him.

And was gone.

He never saw her again.

In time the villager's anger waned even as the moon. The killings stopped and all things returned to normal. Samuel worked harder than ever to earn the money for his passage over, eager to be free of the past and the stigma of his choice as soon as he could. He left the town and tried not to think of her again. Marriage came along. And his sons. And soon Jean was no more than the unfulfilled dream of the younger man he had been.

Until now.

Samuel Larkin rose from his chair, disturbed. He couldn't quite remember, but he was certain Jean had returned and come to him, here, in this house. Of course, he acknowledged with a rueful smile, it had to have been nothing more than a dream. Still, dreams were often a reflection of reality, and now he wondered if his fears had not materialized as a warning.

The woman, _Jeanette_, had shown a pointed liking for Jeremy. Far from jealous, at this point Samuel Larkin was simply a father, worried for his son. _His_ Jean's arrival had heralded doom for his boyhood village.

Now he prayed this Jeanette's presence did not spell the same for his boy.

Elizabeth looked down at her slippered feet. She was on a path, a well-worn path that seemed familiar, and yet she had no idea of where she was. She glanced around, for some reason expecting to find a waterfall and a jumble of broken rocks lying close by, but there was nothing. Nothing but trees. Advancing a few steps, Elizabeth turned in a circle, completely lost.

"Hold!" The voice that addressed her was young, but commanding. "Who goes there?"

Elizabeth jumped. She turned toward the sound, but found the answer caught in her throat and she could say nothing.

"I said…." A young soldier stepped out of the underbrush, brandishing his rifle. As he pointed it at her, he demanded, "I said, 'Who goes – '" The young man's face lit with a smile as he recognized her. "Miss Coates. Why didn't you say who you were? The others are already in the camp with the General. Have you come to join them?"

He knew her. Elizabeth squinted. Who was he? What was his name? "Jenkins?" she asked, unsure.

The young man, barely more than a boy, nodded. "Yep. Keeping watch as usual." He glanced behind her, as though waiting for someone else to appear. When they didn't Jenkins asked, surprised, "You're not out here on your own, are you, Miss?"

She shook her head and forced a laugh. "I had an escort," she lied, though she had no idea why she did. "They let me off back a ways. I didn't want to set off an alarm, so I left them behind." Elizabeth frowned. She _hadn't_ been alone.

But _who_ had been with her?

"Waiting for you then, are they? That's a good idea. The woods is no place for a lady alone, especially with all the strange doings going on nowadays. Did you hear what happened to the General?"

A shiver shook her and she pulled her shawl close. "The General?"

"Wounded, he was. Here." Jenkins touched his throat. "And found wandering in a daze. No one knows just what happened." The young sentry drew closer and lowered his voice. "Some think it has to do with whatever happened to that young woman – the one with her throat ripped out. Have you heard? There's been two more."

"Two more?" she squeaked.

"Women. Murdered. One in Marcus Hook, and one halfway between here and there. There's something evil afoot, Miss. Something not of this world." As she shuddered again, he apologized. "I'm sorry, Miss Coates. I don't mean to scare you. But you oughta take better precautions." Jenkins turned and called to his comrade who watched them from the cover of the leaves. "Pauley, I'm gonna take Miss Coates to the General's tent. You keep watch."

As Pauley yelled his affirmative, Jenkins took her arm and began to walk with her. "I saw the Captain pass by earlier. He's with the General. You're mighty lucky, Miss, to have someone dedicated and true as him. There aren't many men like Captain Yankee Doodle, that's for sure!"

"Yes…." Elizabeth glanced behind, though she didn't know why – other than the fact that it felt like there were eyes watching her. "Please, take me to Jeremy."

In the shadows of the trees a deeper shadow stirred – a slender one with a upswept brown hair, a corseted waist and fine silk skirts. Jeanette Du Charme tilted her head as she watched the pair of young mortals walk toward the Continental Army camp. LaCroix was such a bore! He had no subtlety. Information was not something you wrung from a bird, like its blood, but something you won by feeding and caring for it, by gaining its confidence –

By becoming its friend.

So, Mayor Larkin's handsome blond son was not the reprobate he appeared to be, but a fine 'dedicated' man – a rebel with a cause.

Jeremy Larkin _was_ Captain Yankee Doodle.

What a shame she had to tell LaCroix.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Night had fallen. General Lafayette was sleeping. Henry and Isak as well. Jeremy found sleep eluded him, as did any kind of peace. He nodded to the sentry at the edge of the camp. The man returned the gesture with a salute. It made Jeremy smile. The general's men respected him. They knew who he was and what he stood for.

It was a shame those he loved could not share in that knowledge. At least Robert had known before he died. But his father still thought him a shallow, careless lad and that hurt….

Both his father _and_ him.

Jeremy sighed and shook his head to free his eyes of the unruly wave of dark blond hair that skirted them. He stopped by the sentry, acknowledging the man's need to exchange a few words. Sentry duty was not only boring, but incredibly lonely at times.

"How goes it, Pauley?" he asked the red-haired freckle-faced youth from Marcus Hook.

"Fine, sir. If you don't mind keeping watch over squirrels and sparrows, that is," Pauley added with a grin.

"Too dull for you, eh?"

The young man shrugged. "I wouldn't mind some adventure. I hear you were at Brandywine, sir. Did you see the General rallying the men?"

Jeremy smiled. That moment was already legend: Lafayette, his boot filling with blood, standing on the field, chastising and urging the unruly American troops to return to the fray. "No," he answered softly, "I was in the field. I met the General after the battle was over."

"I hear you saved his life, Captain, you and the others."

Jeremy shrugged. "We helped, but I am sure the General would have found a way out on his own."

"You're too modest, sir."

Jeremy laughed. "That is something I am not often accused of, Pauley. So am I the only soul you have seen tonight?"

Pauley nodded. An affirmative. Then he said, "No, sir."

A frown wrinkled Jeremy's brow. "Well, which is it?"

"Sir?"

"Yes, or no? You seemed to indicate both by your action and words."

"Did I?" Pauley seemed confused. "I haven't seen anyone, it's just…."

"Yes?" Jeremy's interest was peaked. "Go on."

"Well, I seem to remember a man – blond, youngish though I can't say _how_ young or old. Well dressed. But it must have been another day." Pauley lifted his hat and scratched his forehead. "No one else has come this way."

"You're certain of that?"

This time a negative shake of head, but the words, "Yes, Sir."

Jeremy studied the lad a moment. "Very well. I'm going for a walk, Pauley. Don't take a shot at me when I return, all right?"

The sentry seemed uneasy. "It's not my place, but is that wise, Captain? With what's been going on around Chester?"

"I'll be fine. I won't go far." Jeremy clapped his hand on the youth's shoulder. "And I will have _you _to rescue me if I do get in trouble. Right?"

"Sir!"

Jeremy left the sentry behind and entered the woods. By Pauley's description the man he _hadn't_ seen could easily have been Nicholas Knighton. Nicholas had retired early – as soon as the sun set – but when Jeremy had taken a turn past his tent later in the evening, his bed had been empty.

Jeremy wasn't certain what that meant.

Jeremy wasn't certain about much of anything where Professor Nicholas Knighton was concerned.

He had made some casual inquiries around the camp and no one in the General's unit who came from Massachusetts had ever heard of the man. And one of them had recently attended Harvard. And yet, why would Henry lie? And even if Henry was lying, what would make Isak back him up? What would compel his two closest friends to lie to him for a complete stranger?

It made no sense.

And now there was the General and his tale of meeting Knighton when he was a boy. A boy too young to remember the meeting – and yet he did. Jeremy sighed as he turned a bend and entered a densely wooded area. All of the pieces to the puzzle were there, but none of them fit. It was as if there was no answer.

At least none he could accept.

Jeremy's mother had been a deeply religious woman and, though he remembered her but a little, he could recall some of the things she had told him late at night, when he lay in his bed at prayers. His mother had believed that spirits walked among men, angels and demons who fought battles with one another over men's souls.

He wondered which Nicholas Knighton was – angel or demon? And wondered further, if he would ever know.

Jeremy bent, lowering his tall frame so he would not strike his head on a low-lying willow branch. A narrow stream ran close to the willow's roots and, on its other side, a glade opened into the night. At its center two figures stood. Jeremy paused, drawing a breath, and holding it against the discovery as he crouched down.

One was Nicholas Knighton. And the other –

General Lucien LaCroix.

It appeared the two men were in deep dispute. He could not make out their words, but could tell they were arguing. After a minute Nicholas threw one hand out in a cutting gesture. The well-dressed blond shook his head with violence and began to turn away.

LaCroix caught him by the elbow and, twisting his arm behind his back, drove him to his knees. And then the snowy haired man laughed – and the sound of that vile evil pleasure rode the rising breeze to chill Jeremy's heart.

So he had been right. Knighton was _not_ to be trusted. Nicholas _was_ in this with LaCroix. It was a game just as the boyish blond had said – but a deadly game that threatened not only the Cause but the Marquis' life. Jeremy did not know how Henry had been fooled, or why Isak had enlisted his aid, but he knew now that he had to do everything he could to free them from Nicholas Knighton's spell –

Before it was too late.

Jeremy rose to his feet, determined to go, but as did he heard LaCroix's savage laughter ring out again – accompanied by a cry of pain. Turning back he looked, but the glade was empty. He was alone.

Or so he thought.

A second later a hand closed on his arm; the grip that of a well-muscled man. Jeremy pivoted to find the mysterious beauty, Jeanette. She was looking up at him, her expressive blue eyes gleaming black in the moonlight.

"You must learn to be more careful, mon jeune ami," she said. "The wood is a very dangerous place to wander so late in the night."

"Where did you come from?" He was certain she had not been there a moment before.

"Why, from the air itself," she laughed. "You conjured me with your desires, did you not? Were you not thinking of me?"

Jeremy shook his head. His gaze returned to the empty glade. "Where are the others?"

"Others?" she asked innocently.

"Nicholas. And General LaCroix."

"Nichola?" Jeanette shook her dark head. "You are mistaken. He would not have been out here with LaCroix."

Jeremy lifted her fingers, freeing his arm. "He was here. I saw him. There, in the glade. The two of them were arguing."

Janette pouted. "Oh well, then maybe it _was_ Nichola. They do not get along very well."

"How long have you known Knighton?" he asked her.

Jeanette was staring at him. He watched her eyes move to his throat and then saw her lick her lips. "I do not wish to talk of Nichola. What do you say we talk about you – and me?"

Jeremy took a step back. Jeanette seemed transformed. Her eyes had grown enormous and they shone like a mountain cat's at midnight, red as blood.

"Who are you?" he asked, backing further away. "_What _are you?"

"Let us pray you will never have to find out," a man's voice growled from close behind him. "Jeanette, this one is _not _for you."

As a hand fell on his shoulder, Jeremy pivoted. For a second he thought he saw Nicholas Knighton and he, like Jeanette Du Charme, was transformed. Nicholas' eyes glowed a feral red. Sharp white teeth protruded over his lower lip, dripping blood.

"You should not have followed me," Nicholas snarled. "Now, things must change."

Jeremy felt Knighton's hand go to his throat, and then he knew no more.

When Elizabeth arrived in the camp, she found Jeremy missing. And she found the others had no idea he was gone. She roused Henry first and then Isak, and then the three of them went to the General's tent where they found Lafayette, sitting, deep in thought. In spite of Sergeant Boggs remonstrations, sleep had eluded the Frenchman and he was sitting, alone, pondering all that had transpired.

When she told him Jeremy had disappeared Lafayette became agitated, and despite Sergeant Boggs words to the contrary, insisted on joining the hunt.

They canvassed the camp, seeking their missing comrade, only to find Jeremy was not the only man unaccounted for. Nicholas Knighton was gone as well. And if Lafayette was concerned about Jeremy, then Henry and Isak were more than concerned about the professor – in fact they were desperate. It was almost as if, without Knighton's presence, neither one of them knew what to do.

They had left the camp then, she and the General and Sergeant Boggs heading one direction, and Henry and Isak taking another. The pair were still acting strangely and it pained Elizabeth to admit that she was happy to see them go. Near the path that led into the woods, back the way she had come, Lafayette agreed to Sergeant Boggs' request that he be allowed to scout ahead first.

That left the two of them alone.

Elizabeth sat heavily on a nearby boulder, weary beyond words. She glanced up at the sky that was lightening toward morning. Soon the sun's pale fingers would pull away the veil of darkness and a new day would begin.

What would it hold for them all?

"Miss Coates. Elizabeth," a soft voice spoke, intruding on her thoughts.

"General," she said in reply as she turned toward him. She had never seen Lafayette look so weary – or so worried. Before Boggs had left, she had seen the two of them speaking to Pauley. "Did the sentry have any word?" she asked.

Lafayette pursed his lips and thought a moment, as if uncertain of how much information he should surrender. Finally he said, "Pauley saw Jeremy leave the camp."

"He saw him!" She leapt to her feet. "And you didn't tell me? When?"

"Around two in the morning. Jeremy said he intended to take a walk."

"A walk?" Elizabeth frowned. _That_ seemed odd.

"Oui. It does not seem like Jeremy to tempt fate so." The General shrugged. "But we cannot know what was in his mind."

"And the other man – Nicholas, wasn't it?" When Elizabeth spoke the stranger's name something stirred in her, but she forced it down and buried it beneath her fear for the man she loved. "Any word of him?"

He shook his head. "He has vanished, how do you say it? Into _thin_ air?"

"Do you think…." Elizabeth paused to swallow over that fear. "Do you think General LaCroix has Jeremy?"

Lafayette drew closer and placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "We can only pray God would not be so unjust, Elizabeth. That Almighty's agents – as well as the agents of evil – are afoot this night. And that there is an angel of mercy looking over Jeremy and keeping him from harm."

She looked up at him. Lafayette was a kind man, and yet one made of steel when the need arose. She had not spent that much time in the Frenchman's presence, but understood now what Jeremy saw in him. He smiled at her and then turned so the moonlight struck his bandaged throat.

Elizabeth gasped, and her hand went to her own.

"What is it, Miss Coates?" Lafayette asked, turning back.

Her fingers brushed the scarf that bound her neck. She couldn't remember tying it there, but knew she was not to take it off. "You're injured," she replied, covering her own confusion. "Can you tell me what happened?"

The General remained silent for some time, so long in fact she thought he would not answer. Then Lafayette admitted quietly, "I do not know." His dark eyes narrowed as he looked at her and really _saw_ her for the first time. His finger went to the scarf. As she pulled back, he asked her, "You as well?"

Elizabeth was taken with a chill that had nothing to do with the crisp morning air. She couldn't reply, but nodded, terrified.

"Mon Dieu!" Lafayette exclaimed, reaching for the crucifix he bore. "What is happening?"

Jeremy awoke to the sound of raised voices. One male, the other, female. He lay there, barely half-awake, listening. Trying to make sense of their words.

"What were you thinking, Nichola? Meeting in the open with LaCroix? Have you gone mad?"

"I thought, perhaps, I could reason with him."

"Reason? He knows no reason. LaCroix _needs_ no reason. He does what he wants. _Takes_ what he wants. You are no child, Nichola, you know better!"

"I know. I know. I thought – well, I had hoped this time it would be different."

"It will never be different because you and LaCroix, you _cannot_ change. He wants you and you do not want him, or what he offers. It is an insult, Nichola, he will never forgive. And LaCroix will spend every moment of the eternity left us in making your life hell!"

"I am already in Hell, Janette. You know that." Knighton paused and then he continued, his voice slightly amused. "I thought LaCroix claimed to 'love' me."

"As a father loves a disobedient child. Always hoping he will repent and return."

Jeremy frowned. His eyes were so heavy he couldn't open them and he really wanted to – he wanted to look. It seemed Jeanette had moved and, impossibly, her voice now came from directly _above_ him.

"Janette, come back!" Nicholas called. "We are not done yet."

"Oh, but we are." She was closer now, as if she had returned as he requested. "Nichola, you know I have to tell him you have the boy here."

"No! You cannot do that. LaCroix will kill him. Give me two days, Janette. One at the very least!"

"They all die anyway. What do you care?" She paused. "Nichola, I asked you, what do you care?"

Jeremy waited. He heard footsteps – soft, almost imperceptible – and then a familiar voice spoke from close by.

"I care," Nicholas Knighton said.

And Jeremy slept again.

The next time he awoke, he was more alert. Jeremy shifted and sat up. It seemed he was alone and that he was not restrained in any way. Rising shakily to his feet, he looked around. He was in some kind of a natural grotto. There was no entrance or exit he could see, except for a round opening in the ceiling some twenty or thirty feet above his head through which a single brilliant beam of morning light fell. It cut through the false night to paint a circle of light on the stone floor. Jeremy couldn't understand how he had come to be at its bottom without breaking his neck.

Exploring his cage, he prowled the darkness. In it he found a small table set with food and drink, and a few books – most of which were in French. He stopped to pick one up and fingered the fine calfskin binding.

"You'll find Vaughn a bit dull," a soft voice remarked. "I would try the Voltaire. He has more wit."

Jeremy recognized the voice. "And you have more guile. You have shown your true colors, Professor Knighton," he said as he dropped the book and turned toward the dark that had spoken "or whoever you are."

"You think me a traitor then?"

Jeremy slammed his hand down on the table. "What else am I to think, sir? And why do you not come out of the shadows? Are you ashamed to face me?"

"Ashamed? Yes, I am ashamed. But not for the reason you think." The soft footsteps sounded again. Jeremy took a step back as Nicholas Knighton appeared almost directly before him. "I am not working with LaCroix, or the British, if that is what you mean. I am not working with anyone. I came here, to Chester, to escape – but find that in attempting to save myself, I have condemned two good men. You and your General."

Jeremy's look was skeptical. "Condemned, how?"

"I have brought you to LaCroix's attention and _that_ is never a good thing." Nicholas Knighton crossed to the table, careful to skirt the circle of light. "For that I am _truly_ ashamed."

Jeremy frowned. He tried to recall the vision he had had of Knighton and LaCroix in the glade, but it – and all that happened after – was a blur. "Who are you?" he demanded. "And who is he? LaCroix, I mean."

Knighton fell silent. When he looked up, a dozen heartbeats later, his cool blue eyes blazed. "I asked you before, Jeremy, if you were a man of faith. If you believed in God…."

"And the devil. Yes. I remember."

"Now I ask you, do you believe in eternal life?"

Jeremy wondered what his game was, but he answered him anyway. "Aye," he said. One day he and his brother Robert _would_ meet again. "Why do you ask?"

"Do you believe that it can happen here? Here. _Now_?"

He studied the other man. Knighton was serious. "No," Jeremy answered. "Eternal life is the reward of Heaven – "

"Or the curse of Hell!" Knighton growled. Nicholas stared into his eyes for nearly a minute and then deliberately stepped toward the shaft of white light he had been so careful to avoid. He paused before it and looked at him. "I am Hell's creature, Jeremy Larkin, doomed to walk the night for eternity. Doomed forever to pay for a choice I made some five hundred and fifty years ago. A _wrong _choice. A selfish and vile choice which I regret to this very day!"

"Five hundred years…." Jeremy scoffed, "Surely you jest, Sir."

Nicholas shook his head. His eyes teared for a moment before he regained control. "Henry will have told you that I have an illness. Is that right?"

"You cannot tolerate lengthy exposure to the sun. Aye."

"It is not an illness. It is a curse. I am unclean, and those who are unclean cannot stand the pure rays of the sun for it exposes them in all their wickedness." Knighton lifted his arm and rolled back the sleeve, exposing the pale white flesh beneath. "Behold! And believe!"

With that Nicholas thrust his arm into the shaft of light. At first nothing happened and then his skin began to redden, as if it had been placed in the furnace of a smithy's forge. It blistered and hissed, and then began to smoke. Jeremy shouted in alarm and jumped forward, gripping his arm and pulling it back. As they fell into the darkness, he heard Nicholas moan. The man was obviously in pain. Tears streaked his pallid face and he was shaking uncontrollably.

"Good God, Sir!" Jeremy declared. "What have you done? And how? How could light – "

"Watch," Nicholas declared, his tone and demeanor fatalistic. "Watch and learn."

Jeremy had been staring in horror at the man's charred flesh. At the exposed bone and truncated fingers. Now he marveled as Nicholas' hand healed before his eyes, growing new fingers, turning from black to an intense salmon pink before fading to a pallid white once more.

Jeremy shook his head and backed away. "I don't understand…."

"Yes, you do," Nicholas Knighton insisted, rolling down his sleeve. "You, Jeremy Larkin, are what is known as a 'resistor'. You cannot be influenced, nor can you be made to forget. After what you saw in the glade, there was nothing left but tell you the truth. I feel it would have come to this even if it had not been so."

"You…." Jeremy stumbled back. "You _are_ a…."

"A vampire. One of the walking dead, and that knowledge Jeremy carries a heavy price. Now that you know I must decide if I can trust _you_."

"And if you cannot?"

Knighton smiled, that disarming smile, only this time it was laced with threat. "You're dead."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"But he was here, I swear it!" Janette turned in a tight circle, surveying the cave's dark interior where she had last seen Nichola and the handsome young man from Chester. She glanced at LaCroix. Her master was watching her, his patrician face without expression. "I came to you as soon as I could," she protested.

LaCroix knew, of course, that _she _had known that Nichola would spirit Jeremy Larkin away before they arrived. It was an old game the three of them played. One with hard and fast rules – and an all _too_ familiar script.

Lucien LaCroix he had his fingers bent. They cupped his chin. And one rested on his upper lip which was lifted in a perpetual sneer. "How _inconvenien_t of Nicholas not to have awaited our arrival." LaCroix's ice blue eyes pinned her. "What did you tell him, my dear? That you would delay me just long enough to afford him the opportunity of escape?"

She shuddered under his scrutiny. "I told him nothing. Nichola would have known. How could he not?"

LaCroix nodded. "How could he _not_?"

Her master walked to the center of the cave and looked up at the opening in the rough stone ceiling. Theirs had been a dangerous journey, running from shadow to shadow, avoiding the bright white light of day, arriving here just as dusk descended. A single shaft of feeble sunlight fell through the opening, defiant, as _if _the day refused to give way to the night – the blessed night that welcomed their existence.

"They cannot have gone far," LaCroix remarked, still staring at the opening. He made a clucking noise and shook his head. "Poor Nicholas, forced to flee before the cloak of night descended. I fear for him. Travel in daylight hours is not gentle to our kind."

Janette knew he was right. The fact that he was not here meant that Nichola had put himself in danger to save Jeremy Larkin, exposing himself to the hottest and brightest part of the day. She closed her eyes and shuddered seeing him – running through the daylight, burning, in pain, the stinking smoke of imminent destruction rising from his skin. If the God she had once worshipped was all He claimed to be, Janette hoped He had helped her remorse-driven love to a safe haven and a place where he could heal and rest.

"Nichola survives," she declared, moving away from him, toward a table that held some books and a glass. "I would know if he did not."

"Yes, I am sure you would."

Janette pivoted sharply. LaCroix's tone implied she had committed some trespass. "What? What do you mean by that?"

"What do I mean?" LaCroix's ice-blue eyes, feral as the wolf's, narrowed as his gaze settled on her. "I mean there is a connection between you two – partners, lovers, _siblings_ – of which I have no part."

"And you are jealous?" Her attempt to keep the triumph from her tone failed. "You mean there is something Nichola and I have, that _you _have not?"

"I made you both. You are mine," he answered. "But more than that you are each others." A wolfish smile echoed the sentiment of his cold cruel eyes. "And that is why, my dear, at this moment I do not trust you."

"I came to you. I told you the truth!" Janette held her head high. "The Larkin boy was here. What Nichola has done with him, I do not know."

"Oh, _that _I believe." LaCroix continued to stare at her for a moment and then he turned his eyes heavenward again, as if sensing the direction of her earlier thoughts. Then, lifting his hands, her master stepped forward – into the shaft of dying sunlight – and embraced their greatest enemy.

Even as tiny tendrils of smoke began to trail from his wide-spread fingers, rising to pass as dark ghosts over the surface of his pure white hair, Janette gasped, "LaCroix! What are you doing? Have you gone _mad_?"

He answered with a sneer. "I am proving a point, my dear. You and your precious 'Nichola' are as babes compared to me. I have walked this world for _seventeen_ _hundred _years. What would destroy you, is to me a minor inconvenience." He snarled as he stepped back, out of the light. "There is no thought, no hope, no _dream_ in your head that I do not know. No scheme I cannot predict. No plot that will not fail. Neither your or Nicholas can escape me – _ever_!"

Janette retreated into the shadows, horrified by the thought of even that dusky light touching her flesh as it did his. LaCroix was right. It was hopeless. Nichola could never escape the master who had made him. He would never be human again, or find redemption for his anguished soul.

Nichola could not win.

But the fact that he continued to try was made her love him so.

Janette remained silent, watching the smoke disperse, following its trail up and out the hole in the ceiling and wishing she could find some similar path of escape. Finally, she asked, her voice lifeless as the eternal form she inhabited.

"What will you do, LaCroix? With Nichola? With the Larkin boy and the others?"

LaCroix's baleful laugh echoed through the rocky cavern as he thrust his arms out wide and rose effortlessly into the air.

"_Anything_ I desire!"

Jeremy had seen marvels before, but to add another to the list did nothing to diminish its wonder – or its impossibility. Nicholas insisted they run. That they leave the darkened cave behind and escape as soon as possible. By needs, that meant he must expose himself to the midday sun. Jeremy protested, knowing it could destroy him, but his companion would not listen. Then he realized the point was moot. They were in a cavern. With no way out.

Or so he thought.

Nicholas could fly!

The man who claimed to be over five hundred years old wrapped his arms about Jeremy's waist and, pushing off the cavern floor, bore them both to the surface where they landed in the safety of the deep, cool shadows of the trees. On the surface they faced one another. As a commander in the field Jeremy knew that, when presented with a new reality, you accepted it and moved on. He did this now. With a nod, the two of them began to run. They chose their path wisely, careful to seek out shadowy pockets and shaded glens, but even so there were miles of daylight in between. All too quickly it took its toll. Nicholas Knighton was a mass of scarlet blisters and blood by the time they reached the safety of the river cave they occupied now. In the last ten minutes Jeremy had watched his companion's raw skin heal until it was once again pale and perfect – as if it had never known a blemish.

Still, even though he appeared healed, Nicholas was not. He was weak. His hands trembled and he stumbled when he moved. At last, weary beyond expressing, he crossed to the back wall of the cave and planted his hands on the cold stone, breathing hard.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Jeremy asked as he approached him.

The other man shook his head. "No, my friend. At least…nothing I am willing to ask of you."

Jeremy frowned as he inspected him. It almost seemed the other man had shrunk – as if he was withering away. "But you are ill. You appear to have recovered – your skin is whole – but something else is wrong."

Nicholas smiled – a pale shadow of the smile which had at first befuddled Jeremy so. "I am hungry," he said simply. "I have not…fed for some time."

"Fed?" Jeremy frowned. "You mean – ?"

"Yes. I need blood."

He drew a steadying breath. This was not only unnatural, it was _unreal_. "And you are too weak to seek it for yourself?"

Nicholas nodded. "Aye."

Jeremy pursed his lips and considered the risk he was taking. Then he asked, quietly, "Why do you not attack me? Can you _choose_ not to? If you _are_ the Devil's agent as you say, would not your own survival outweigh any bond of friendship or – "

Nicholas laughed, and then convulsed with a cough. He drew a deep breath and his words came out in a sigh. "Many years ago, Jeremy, I made a choice. I vowed I would not feed on humans unless I had to. And then it would only be the vagrant, the _indigent_, those whose deaths would cause little or no pain to the living." He paused and shifted so his back was braced against the wall. Then he closed his eyes. "I can see them – the mothers, the daughters and sons, those who follow in our wake and find a lifeless corpse, drained of its life blood, nothing left but the shell of the one they knew and loved." Nicholas opened his eyes. "Even the vagrant, the indigent have those who love them. The choice I made was sheer arrogance – sheer hypocrisy!"

"But without blood you _die._ Is this not so?"

"No." Nicholas voice was soft. "But I will cease to exist. I will be destroyed." He opened his eyes and his gaze went to the cave opening. "Maybe that would be for the best."

Jeremy was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Why did you choose this then? The life of a vampire. If you hate it so? You were a man once, such as I am – were you not?"

Nicholas' smile returned. "I was a young man, a soldier and Crusader. I pledged my life for the cross and the cause of Christ. The cross which now I cannot look upon without pain."

"What happened?"

The smile faded, replaced with a haunted look. "A woman. And the promise of eternal life – here and now."

"Jeanette?" Jeremy asked.

Nicholas nodded. "Yes. Janette. She wanted me. I wanted her. As well as all she offered."

"Which was?"

"Wealth. Ease. Power."

"And the choice was your own? She did not – "

A severe chill shivered through Nicholas' frame and he slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "Janette did nothing. No one is to be blamed for my eternal damnation." Tears formed in his eyes and spilled over onto his pallid cheeks. "No one but _me_!"

Jeremy knelt beside him and placed a hand on Nicholas' shoulder. "Nicholas, the God I was taught to love is a God of forgiveness. I can tell you repent of the choice you made. And I can see the life you live now is one of penance. Surely, even _you_ can be forgiven."

Nicholas' tearful eyes sought his. "How can you – someone whose life I have put in danger – offer me such hope?"

Jeremy gripped his hand. It was cold as ice with no sense of blood or heartbeat pulsing through it. He swallowed hard, still trying to come to terms with something that flew in the face of everything he knew. Still, there was one thing he _did_ know was true….

Nicholas Knighton was as good a man as he had ever met, and he was in pain.

"I doubted you. I thought you evil for what you did to Henry and Isak. I suspected you of being an accomplice to this man LaCroix, of acting with the British…. I was wrong. No matter what choices you have made in the past, Nicholas Knighton – or whoever you are – you are a man whom God would love. You stand for what is right. You were willing to sacrifice yourself to save _me_." Jeremy paused and added with a smile, "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend."

Nicholas returned his grip weakly. "I can only hope that my actions may prove to whatever power holds my fate that I _am_ worthy – someday – of redemption. Eternal life in the here and now is a cursed gift, and one I would gladly return to be a mortal once again like you."

Jeremy continued to hold his hand as a spasm wracked his lean frame and he curled into a ball. "What can I do for you? Here and now," he asked.

Nicholas shuddered and then shifted to meet his eyes. Jeremy started and drew back. The other man's eyes were no longer blue, but had turned a hideous vile green.

"Leave me!" he growled, his voice thickening, growing deeper even as his lips drew back to reveal pearl-white teeth sharp as spikes. "Jeremy, go! Before I forget myself and turn on you!"

Jeremy shook his head. "I will go, but only if you tell me what I can do to save you. Can you feed on something other than …humans?"

"I have lived many a day on cow's blood." Nicholas' lips curled back in a self-deprecating smile even as he shuddered again. "A poor bouquet, but a starving man can not complain."

"Then I will get it for you. Will any animal do?"

"Now – even seeing me like this - you would do that?"

Jeremy rose to his feet. He nodded. "You have proven yourself true as any man I know. And against this evil named 'LaCroix', that I do not know and _cannot_ comprehend, you are an indispensable ally. Even if you were not, I would not let you die."

Nicholas laughed weakly. "I am _dead_ already…."

"Even so. Rest, Nicholas Knighton. I will return as soon as I can."

As he turned to leave, Nicholas' hand shot out, feebly catching the fabric of his breeches. "Be careful, my friend. LaCroix not only seeks me – but you. The killing of the Rebel leaders is true. And if you are _not_ careful, he may take you and do worse. He may turn you into what I am."

The shudder this time was his. Jeremy swallowed hard and nodded. He had never feared death. It was part and parcel of the path he had chosen. But eternal life as a dead creature who walked the night – and worse, eternal damnation?

_That _he feared.

"Rest," Jeremy said again. "I will return as soon as I can."

"Take it, Elizabeth. I insist."

She looked up at the handsome Frenchman who spoke to her. Lafayette was serious. Elizabeth's eyes went to the golden chain and the image of the body of Christ it held, suspended on the cross. She shook her head. "No. It is not _me_ they want, but you. You must keep it."

"I cannot rest, knowing you are in danger," he insisted, pressing it into her hand and closing her fingers within his own. "I will not take no for an answer."

Elizabeth nodded, though she frowned as she did. The metal of the crucifix was blazing hot in her palm, not cold as she would have expected. "Thank you for the gift, but I still say you should have it. You are the one in danger. _Deadly_ danger. It is you and Jeremy this man LaCroix is after. That is why she gave you a gift as well."

The tall dark-haired man frowned at her as he released her hand. "A gift? And who is this 'she' you speak of?"

"Janette," she answered softly. Elizabeth didn't know how she knew that was her name, but she did. She lifted a hand and touched the linen cloth that bound his neck. "This was to _protect_ you. So she would be able to watch over you." Elizabeth blinked and closed her eyes, suddenly dizzy. "Know this. She does not want you to come to harm, but he is very strong…."

Lafayette caught her arm and steadied her as she stumbled forward. When she looked up at him, he said, "Elizabeth you are not making sense – "

"Yes, she is. Perfect sense," a sultry voice intruded from close by.

Elizabeth watched as the tall Frenchman pivoted toward it. Then she turned and followed his surprised stare with her own. Janette Du Charme was emerging from the shadowy trees, her petite form wrapped in scarlet silk and bathed in the rising moonlight. Lifting her skirts primly, the dark-haired beauty made her way to their side. Once she was close to Lafayette, she gazed up at him with open hunger. He started to back away, but one touch from Janette stopped him. She ran a finger along his jaw and then touched the wound on his neck. Then she kissed his lips with a quick, nipping gesture and let out a sigh.

"You are _so_ like your father…" she breathed.

It took him a moment but, from somewhere deep within, Lafayette found the willpower to ask, "You knew him?"

"Oui," she answered. "I think, perhaps, I loved him – at least for while." Janette's smile was that of a little girl infatuated with love itself. "He was tall and straight, and _so_ polite and well-mannered. And though I could have killed him for it, devoted to the woman who hung on his arm." Janette shrugged her nearly bare shoulders. "Fidelity in a man is frustrating, but fascinating never-the-less."

"I remember you," Lafayette said haltingly. "You came to our home, in Auvergne."

"You were a mewling babe then, with little promise of what was to come." She laid her hand on his exposed chest and stared into his eyes. "What _do_ you remember?"

"He meant to _kill_ my mother. The white-haired man…."

"LaCroix meant to kill you _all_." Janette snorted. "If not for Nichola, he would have. Too bad. LaCroix warned him there would be a price exacted one day."

"A price?" Elizabeth asked, addressing the dark woman for the first time since her emergence from the trees.

Janette turned to her. "Ah! My eyes and ears. So you have a mouth as well. Yes, a 'price'. A life for a life. Nichola saved this one's mother, Julie, but condemned his father by the act. And now LaCroix has come to claim his _dividend_ – the son!"

"He came to Chester to kill the Marquis?"

"No." Janette was still staring at Lafayette, licking her lips in anticipation. "LaCroix came to Chester in search of Nichola. This one is a little something extra – _dessert_!"

"And what of Jeremy? What is he?" Elizabeth demanded. "Are we nothing more to you than food for the table?"

Janette's bright eyes flashed. "Oui!"

"You are _horrid_. Evil!"

"Who are you to say what I am? You have no more right to damn us for what we do than a chicken has to condemn the one who feeds it – and then demands its head!" Janette scowled at her. "Be silent, or I will silence you!"

Janette's anger pulsed through her, as if she were a wayward child who had wounded a beloved parent. Elizabeth felt torn. The crucifix the Marquis had given her blazed in her closed palm, but the evil of Janette pulsed through her veins, calling more strongly. "Why are you here? Now?" she asked the wicked creature. "Why come here now if not to _save_ him?"

Janette pouted. She glanced at the Marquis and then, crossing her arms over her breast, declared, "I thought I told you to be quiet."

"You did," Elizabeth said stubbornly.

Janette folder her arms. "It has nothing to do with this one – "

"And everything to do with Nicholas Knighton?"

Elizabeth was in love. She knew the signs. She had sensed the dark woman's deep attachment to the handsome elegantly dressed man with the tousled blond hair. It was evident when she spoke of him.

Janette made a dismissive gestured with her gloved hand. Lafayette, who had remained silent for some time, spoke into the silence, saying, "You were there, in the room. You sided with Nicholas, and dared LaCroix's wrath to save my mother."

Janette's pout turned to a frown. "She was a bit of meat on the hoof," she said as she pivoted. "And I did not give you permission to speak either! It must be something in the water or the soil around here…."

Lafayette seemed to shake himself, to rally a bit. "That was not what my mother was to Nicholas," he insisted.

Janette sagged suddenly with a weariness born of centuries of love and loss. "No. Not to Nichola. He _loved_ Julie – stupid boy that he was."

"And now you mean to help him to save her son," a new voice spoke from close behind them.

Elizabeth knew it. She pivoted at the sound. "Jeremy!"

It was him. Her love. Whole. _Alive_. "Elizabeth," Jeremy said as he smiled that smile she knew so well and loved so deeply, and opened his arms wide.

Elizabeth shoved the crucifix the general had given her into the pocket at her waist and ran recklessly to his side. Even as she did, she heard Janette du Charme turn to the Marquis and remark dispassionately.

"If I wasn't already dead, I think I would kill myself…."

Elizabeth was wan; her skin pale and peaked. The general looked even worse. His wide brown eyes were vacant, though there was a fire deep within them that stirred, as if he struggled valiantly against whatever control the pale woman who walked with them exerted. Janette du Charme was ravishing as always, and deadly as any predator that prowled the woods around Chester. Once he had admitted Nicholas Knighton's existence as a vampire, it had not taken Jeremy long to put the pieces together. Nicholas, Janette and LaCroix –

All three were the walking dead.

He led the others back to where he had left Nicholas. Janette took the pair of coneys he had caught in her fingers, her petite upturned nose wrinkling in disgust as though the freshly killed rabbits were offal instead, and carried them into the cave where her starving companion waited. Jeremy had nodded his gratitude to her and, in spite of her smirk and quick dismissal of him, had seen in her eyes a reflection of the same emotion. No matter _what_ they were, Janette and Nicholas shared a bond of love that was almost as deep as the hatred they shared for the monster – and their master – Lucien LaCroix.

He stood now beside Elizabeth, considering what course to pursue next. General Lafayette was with them but he seldom spoke without first being spoken to.

"Where is sergeant Boggs?" Jeremy asked him for the second time.

"Boggs? Oh, oui, Daniel. Scouting ahead. He should return soon." He fell silent again. Then a frown marred his vacant face and the fire in his eyes brightened. "I pray he is all right."

"As I do Henry and Isak. Elizabeth tells me they set out in pursuit of Nicholas and have not been seen since."

Lafayette's frown deepened. He drew several breaths and seemed to shake himself awake. "Now that I think of it, Daniel should have returned some time ago." He glanced at the sky. "It has been too long. If anything has happened to him –"

A rustling in the trees nearby cut the general's sentence short. Jeremy nodded. He heard it too. The sound of the wind moving through the trees, but something more as well. Something familiar –

The tramp of several dozen booted feet.

Before he could find the voice to cry out, the emerald leaves parted, admitting a crimson tide. The boots were black. The breeches white. The scarlet coats glistening with silver and gold. As Jeremy watched a squad of British regulars took positions in a close ring about them and raised their bayoneted muskets.

At their head was Lucien LaCroix.

"Well, well, what have we here?" the white-haired man asked, his voice dripping with evil amusement. "The pride of the Rebellion, isn't it? Captain Yankee Doodle. And the adventurous Frenchman. The 'Fa Yette' - the _boy_ who would be a general."

Jeremy stepped in front of Lafayette. He could _not_ believe this was happening. He cared not one whit what they did to him, but the general? If the British army got hold of Lafayette, they would make of his capture and death a spectacle that would break the spirit – the very _soul_ of the Rebellion.

It would be a blow from which the Cause would never recover.

"Sir, do what you will with me, but let the general go!" He knew the plea was useless, but felt it his duty to try.

"Jeremy, no!" Lafayette declared from behind him.

He did not look at him. "I deny nothing. And I will come willingly."

"Ah, such _loyalty_!" LaCroix snarled, his words dripping disdain. "Such deep and abiding devotion." The ancient vampire drew close to him and added with an arrogant sneer, "Shall I show you, my lad, just how much such 'loyalty' is worth when dealing with one of _my_ kind?" LaCroix raised a hand and snapped his fingers. "Daniel! Come here."

Jeremy glanced at his commander and saw him blanch. Lafayette took a step back, physically repulsed. Jeremy turned back to see, knowing what he would find – but not believing it. A solid form separated from the Redcoat line. The man, dressed in frontiersman's clothes, with sandy hair and a weary face lined with cares, was trembling. Tears streaked his face. But Sergeant Daniel Boggs, Lafayette's aide, friend and confident, did as Lucien LaCroix ordered.

LaCroix's upper lip curled with delight. "You _had_ to wonder how I found you here, in the middle of nowhere." Jeremy's eyes went to Daniel's throat as he spoke. LaCroix did not miss the gesture. "The sergeant is a little 'tough' for my taste," he said, adding with menace as his eyes returned to Lafayette. "Now, _this_ one…."

At that his general bristled. "Jeremy, step aside. I will not allow another to fight my battle."

He shook his head and remained where he was. "No, sir. I will not. You are more important than a dozen of me."

"Jeremy?"

He could have kicked himself. It was Elizabeth. He had all but forgotten her. Jeremy turned to meet her gaze, knowing it would be filled with fear for him. Not really having the time to deal with it or his own reaction. "Elizabeth, I am sorry, but I can't…."

Jeremy stopped. Elizabeth's eyes did not hold fear.

They held nothing.

"Elizabeth?"

Jeremy heard Lafayette's quick intact of breath. He saw her hand move, but didn't realize until it was too late what she was doing. Even as the knife blade slid between his ribs and he fell to his knees, he realized his mistake. He had underestimated the vampire's power. Of all the people who walked the earth, he thought he knew his love –

But he was wrong.

Elizabeth Coates mechanically handed the bloodied knife Janette had given her earlier to LaCroix. He stared at it and then raised it to his mouth and licked it clean. She felt nothing. No guilt. No pain. No joy.

Nothing.

Janette knelt at Jeremy's side and placed her hand in his blood. "Leave it!" La Croix snarled. "I presume you did as you were told?"

She nodded as she rose to her feet. Her face was a portrait of torn loyalties. "Nicholas has not fed. He is _dying_!"

"Breeding will out, my dear. After all," he indicated Jeremy's prone form with a sweep of his hand, "I have set a sumptuous table for him which he cannot refuse. Nicholas will smell the human's blood and he _will_ come. Now gather up your charges and let us go."

"Did I do all right, Mistress?" Elizabeth asked as the woman walked past her.

Janette impatiently turned toward her. "Oui. Yes! Now follow LaCroix."

Elizabeth hesitated as the other woman took the Marquis by the hand. "No," he protested weakly even as he did as he was ordered. "Jeremy…."

"Is already dead." Janette laughed. "As are we! As _you _are soon to be."

"Bring the boy, Janette."

"Do you mean to turn him over to _them_?" the dark-haired beauty asked with a nod of her head toward the silent British soldiers.

LaCroix approached them. He took his hand and reached out, and taking Lafayette's chin between his fingers, turned his face so the moonlight revealed every feature. "So like his father. I think a similar death would be appropriate….

"But not before I have had some fun."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Samuel Larkin stirred in his chair by the fire. He stretched and moaned and glanced out the window opposite. Night had fallen. The moon was high and still Jeremy had not come home. He had gone looking for his son, unnerved by the dreams he had had, as well as a feeling of impending doom, but once at the edge of town had not known which avenue to pursue. A search of the woods would prove nearly impossible. And Jeremy might have gone to one of the other nearby towns as he often did. He had a notion of going to the Coates farm, but by then it had grown dark and with the strange happenings in the countryside, he thought it best to return home and wait.

Samuel rose from his chair and crossed to the window and looked out on his quiet sleepy town. It was very early morning, perhaps no later than two, and few moved about but the town crier, the hog reeves and lamplighters. He could hear the wheels of a wagon rolling across the stones, no doubt carrying goods to one of the local merchants to be unloaded by dawn's light, and the ever present tramp of the boots of the British soldiers who occupied their town. Since this man, LaCroix, had come, it seemed the patrols had doubled. Or at least the sound of their presence had. At times he thought he heard them but when he looked, saw nothing. The town it seemed at times was patrolled by shadow soldiers – as if the British now used magic to magnify their threat.

Listening now, he heard it again. The steady tread of booted feet. The harshly shouted orders. Samuel blinked and wiped his eyes and returned to his chair to get his glasses, determined to know whether _these_ Redcoats were real or yet another set of ghosts. Returning to the window he saw a group of soldiers, perhaps twenty in number, passing by. At their head was a tall figure in a scarlet coat whose short white hair blazed a silver-white in the moonlight.

"General LaCroix!" he exclaimed. Samuel Larkin recognized the man from his brief visit to the house. He adjusted his glasses and crossed to a different window and continued to note their progress. Evidently they were headed to the town hall. Samuel noted they had a prisoner – a tall lean man who walked at the center of the throng dressed not in red, but in somber browns. The young man's head hung down as though he had been beaten and he walked haltingly. It took Samuel some moments to recognize him, and when he did he could not believe his eyes.

It was Robert's general!

Lafayette.

"My God," he whispered, and then his surprise turned to horror as he noted Lafayette was not alone. A small slender shadow walked at his side. Female. Dark haired as well.

Elizabeth.

But where was Jeremy? Samuel shifted from side to side, searching, but there was no sign of his son. Why would the Redcoats have John Coates' girl? Could Elizabeth be in league with the rebels? Was that possible? And if she was, did that mean that Jeremy – that his only living son was somehow mixed up in the dangerous Rebel Cause as Jeanette de Chevalier had suggested?

Samuel blinked. He took his glasses off and pinched the skin between his eyes, fending off a headache. But _when_ had she suggested it? He did not recall the topic coming up at the supper table the night she and the British officers attended. But there it was, at the back of his mind – the thought that his youngest son _might_ be a Rebel.

Samuel shook himself and reached for his cloak. He was old. His memory was not what it had been. Still, it seemed – of late – that there had been _too_ many dreams.

Some of what he remembered _had _to be real.

Jeanette de Chevalier held the answers.

He didn't know how, but he had to find her – and then he had to save that young man. If Major General Lafayette of the Continental Army died at the Redcoat's hands, Robert would never forgive him.

It called him.

The scent of life for him.

That of death for another.

Nicholas closed his eyes and summoned every ounce of strength that remained in him and rose to his feet. The two dead rabbits Janette had dutifully drained dry to her disgust at LaCroix's command, lay discarded near by. It never ceased to amaze him. How something could be warm one minute and cold the next. How that spark of life that burned so brightly, was so easily extinguished. No matter how many times he killed, he felt its loss each time – and felt it keenly. The rows of raised earth that marked the graves of those he had feasted on haunted the path he walked as surely as their ghostly faces and condemning voices did his dreams.

Pushing off the wall Nicholas stumbled forward toward the thing that called him. Toward a heart pounding hard, toward the scent of the approach of death. Toward the sweet bouquet of a life pouring out, wetting the cold hard ground. The moon's pallid light filled the entry of the cave promising him protection, strengthening him as its rays brushed his weakened form, claiming him as one of its own. He paused in the cave mouth, one hand to the rough wall, and looked out.

And then he understood.

He could hear LaCroix laughing even now.

"No! By all that is Holy. By all that counts me accursed. LaCroix, _no_!" He raised impotent fists to the sky. Jeremy Larkin's prone form lay on the wet grass before him. A gash in his side spoke of betrayal – a subject Nicholas knew _all _too well.

He would either drink his friend's blood.

Or he would die.

"No…." Nicholas whimpered, falling to his knees. "No. I will not."

"Nicholas…."

"Jeremy?" He rose to his feet and started toward the injured man, but stopped as the need for his blood resounded through him, all but overcoming his determination not to feast. Nicholas felt the thing that lived within him rise and knew his eyes had turned a sickly green. He heard the vampire's voice issue from his throat, its feral tone harsh even to his own ears. And felt the ivory tips of the vampire's teeth press into the tender skin of his lower lip. "How did this happen? Who did this to you?" he asked.

Jeremy was silent for some time. Then with effort he shifted and looked at him. His words were laced with a deep sorrow. "It was Elizabeth."

"No," Nicholas countered, "it was LaCroix."

Jeremy shuddered. He shook his head. "Not LaCroix. Jeanette."

Nicholas closed his eyes. How weary he grew of the eternal game they played! Janette did not mean to cause him pain, but she had through countless centuries. She was not strong enough. She could not defy LaCroix. But stupidly believing that one day it might be so, he continued to trust her when he knew he should not.

And to love her when she betrayed him.

"How are you hurt?" he asked. "Is the wound mortal?"

"I don't know." Jeremy paused, as if gathering the strength to continue. "But it might as well be so. We are in the middle of the wood. The blood flow is copious." He hesitated, and then added quietly, "How can you stand the sight of it?"

Nicholas growled, and turned away from the pounding, pressing need. "I cannot."

"Then _use_ me. Gain strength. Go after LaCroix and stop him! Save my friends," Jeremy gasped, exhausted, feverish.

Dying.

"It is the last thing I can do for them," he said.

The irony was that Nicholas might have saved his life, if he dared go closer to the wounded man. But then LaCroix knew that knowledge would bring him pain as well. In the five centuries he had lived, he had had training as a doctor. Hospitals were easy places for them to dwell – who knew whether a man died and from what cause but his doctor? But now those skills which _he_ had honed to save men, were useless in the face of his own ever pressing and overpowering need.

"No, Jeremy. I would die first."

"Then we _both _die. What good is there in that?" Jeremy's voice was weakening as he slipped toward unconsciousness. "The general will die and…Elizabeth. The Cause, Nicholas, the _Cause_. My brother will have died in vain. Please…."

Nicholas turned back and stared at him. In a way, when they feasted, the one they took became a part of them – their hopes, their dreams, their memories joining with them in the blood. In that way this young man – selfless, noble, _strong_ – would live on. He staggered closer to him, ever more aware of the precious blood flowing through Jeremy's fingers, falling, wasted to the ground.

As he hesitated at Jeremy's side, their eyes met. "Do you know what you ask of me?" Nicholas snarled. "Do you _really _know?"

Jeremy nodded weakly. "Will I become like you?"

"Not unless you desire it. You would have to be 'brought across'. Every ounce of blood would be drained until barely an ounce remained. You die, and in the last moment _struggle _back to this eternally damned life. Is that what you want, Jeremy? To be like me?" He opened his mouth and bared his sharp elongated teeth. "To be a _beast,_ cursed for eternity?"

"No. Death holds no fear for me." Jeremy's eyes were glazed. In another moment he would be unconscious. He smiled and raised a hand. "Robert is here. He says it is not my time. But there is…no…other way…."

Nicholas knelt beside him and caught Jeremy's hand in his own. He crouched, feeling the life pulse through his veins. He fought the demons that controlled him, but they were strong – _stronger_ than him. Baring his teeth, he growled and bent his head to the young man's wrist.

Something stopped him. A sound. The wind.

A spirit wind.

Looking up Nicholas saw a shadow against the trees – a tall young man, blond as he. The shade's pale blue eyes, cool as a breath of spring, fell on him with pity. With compassion and not condemnation. _No_, he said. _Wait_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"Well, well, if it isn't Michel du Motier's son. Here in the colonies. Apparently I must have mislaid my Paris newspaper. I am certain your departure was news," Lucien LaCroix remarked quite casually. "And such a foolish thing to do! To trade a life such as yours – one of pleasure and excess – for a bed of straw, hard tack and filthy water. All to support a fledgling nation that has chosen to roost too close to the edge and is doomed to fall and _die_."

The tall man with white hair in the British general's coat sat behind an ornate Chippendale desk with his black booted feet resting on its brilliantly polished top. His long fingers were steepled beneath his chin. Lafayette stood facing him. He had not been bound. There was no guard in the room or without. He was, in fact, quite free. Even the door to the room stood open behind him, beckoning – as if the man before him had no fear that he would run.

But then LaCroix claimed to know his father and so, knew him as well.

The soldiers had marched him up the stair and then placed him in a small room adjoining the office for nearly half an hour before he was to General LaCroix's presence. Once in the cloistered space he had quickly donned the crucifix Elizabeth had pressed in his hand. The golden relic rested now against his heart, its physical presence – and the greater Presence it represented – warming and strengthening him.

LaCroix waited and when he did not reply, lowered his feet to the floor and leaned forward over the desk. "How is your mother?" he asked. "Julie? I think that was her name. Golden-red hair if I remember right. And an exquisitely long neck." He waited and when Lafayette still refused to speak, added with menace. "You will find, Gilbert, that I grow cross quite easily. I would suggest you sit down," LaCroix indicated the wooden chair that rested before the desk with a wave of his hand, "and relax. Tell me about yourself. Otherwise, annoyance may become anger. And if it does, it will not be _you _who pays, but that lovely rosy-cheeked child waiting in the cell below. Elizabeth, wasn't it?"

Lafayette stiffened as he met the man's predatory stare and saw in LaCroix's ice-blue eyes the reality of the threat. Yielding to that reality, he rounded the chair quickly and sat in it. "She is dead," he answered woodenly.

"Ah! A pity. Such a lovely thing too."

"How do you know her?"

"A question!" LaCroix clapped his hands together as he settled back in the chair. "Good. _Good_. Now we can get some where. How did Julie die?"

"She died. That is all."

LaCroix pursed his lips and shook his head. "Temper, temper, Gilbert. I don't remember your father being such a bore."

Lafayette scowled. He hated games, but this was one he must play – for Elizabeth's sake. "I don't remember my father," he replied, his jaw tight.

LaCroix appeared to think, as if tallying the years. "That's right," he breathed, "you were an unweaned babe in the cradle the last time I saw you covered in spittle and sour milk…." The man's pale eyes narrowed. "That was the night Janette and Nicholas and I paid your grandmother's home a visit."

"That was almost twenty years ago. It could not have been you."

"Is that all? My, how time – among other things – flies." LaCroix's grin was evil. "If it had not been for Nicholas' interference your mother would have died that night. You as well. But then, perhaps I should be grateful to him – what _fun_ I would have missed if I had robbed myself of the opportunity to destroy you, and all you stand for, now."

In his mind's eye they were one and the same – the evil shadow, growling, bent over his mother's slender form – and this man.

But how could that be?

"You can be no more than forty," Lafayette protested. "The man who came to the manor was forty then, if not more."

General LaCroix's white eyebrows peaked. "An insult! My, you _are_ fun! I assure you, I haven't aged a day in seventeen hundred years."

"Seventeen hundred…." Lafayette's brow wrinkled with puzzlement as he struggled to reconcile the man's words to his own present and past reality. "Who are you, LaCroix? Who are you really?"

"Better ask, who am I not?" LaCroix laughed. He rose from his seat and moved to the front of the desk and rested there on one hip. "I am _not _a British general. I am not even in the military, though I have worn a thousand uniforms for a hundred different kings. I am not forty years, but seventeen _centuries_ old. And," he leaned in close and whispered near his ear, "I am _not _human."

Evil emanated from the man. It exuded from his pores. It dripped off LaCroix's tongue and welled in pools in his ice cold stare. Lafayette resisted the urge to touch the crucifix that lay concealed beneath his shirt, but felt its quiet assurance against the rhythm of his rapidly beating heart.

LaCroix drew a deep breath of air in through his nose and let it out with a sigh. "An enjoyable bouquet – eminently pleasurable - the scent of fear. Nectar of the gods. You are _wise_ to fear me, boy."

"I do not fear you," Lafayette answered quietly. "Nor do I fear death."

"Well, why _should_ you? Death, after all, is just the beginning of things. But you should fear _me_, Gilbert du Motier. I can make of your life a _living_ death. I can drain your body to within an inch of life's end and make you _my_ creature. I can force you to stand by impotent while the lifeblood of your friends pours out on the ground before you. I can turn you on your _precious_ Rebellion and make you the darling of King George. Oh, no, you do not need fear death – it is _living_ you should fear."

Lafayette tried but could not keep himself from trembling. The baleful nature of the creature who questioned him was withering. LaCroix's mere presence wore away at his strength and resolve and threatened to take him back to that place where he had been when Daniel Boggs had found him in the woods, his neck torn and bleeding – lost, alone and defeated.

"Why do you hate me so?" Lafayette asked, his voice a ragged whisper.

"It is not you I hate, dear Gilbert, but the one that sired you," La Croix snapped. "Michel came between me and my own and I will _not_ have that! I warned Nicholas when he prevented me from taking your mother that there would be a price to pay. That price was his dear friend Michel du Motier."

"My father died in battle on the field at Minden."

"Did he now?" LaCroix scoffed. "Oh. Were you there? I must have missed seeing you for all the smoke."

"And you mean to say _you_ were? Why would I believe such a thing?"

"Believe it. I was with the Prussians." LaCroix drew closer and held his hand before his face. "With _this_ I drove the bayonet home through your father's heart and pinned him to grass like the insignificant _insect_ he was. His death was long and lingering. His pain great. His defeat and humiliation total and…_utterly_ pleasurable."

Lafayette was breathing hard. Tears of unspoken grief carried for two decades welled in his eyes. "Mon Dieu…" he whispered.

"My God! Your _god_ is a pale puny thing born of this mortal race and _nothing _compared to me! He did not save your father, and he will not save you. God does not care. His voice is silent when you pray your pitiful prayers." LaCroix caught him by the collar and pulled him to his feet and forced him to meet his infernal stare. The general's eyes were no longer blue but had become a sickly sallow yellow, and his voice echoed hollowly, thick and throaty as the ravenous snarl of a wolf. "Pray to _me_! Beg _me_ to spare your miserable life! I am the only God you have now!"

"Never!" Lafayette swore. "Never!"

"Then it is the end of the Marquis de La Fayette that _was_ and the beginning of the one to be. I will turn you into my puppet and glory as your precious Cause falls to dust. Just think, who will turn you away when you, the beloved 'boy' appear at their door? Will Green? Or Wayne…." LaCroix's voice fell to a whisper.

"Or Washington?"

With a power beyond that which was human, LaCroix placed a hand to the side of his head and bent it sideways, exposing his bandaged throat. He snatched the soiled linen away, revealing the half-healed wound, and with an inhuman growl bared sharp ivory teeth whetted keen as knife blades. Lafayette closed his eyes and committed his soul to his God, praying that forgiveness would be found in Heaven for his sin of being too weak to resist.

Then, just as his skin felt the impression of the vampire's bite the damned creature howled in anger and reared back. Lafayette lost his balance and fell to the floor. When he looked up he saw LaCroix reeling back. The cursed creature's lips were bleeding. On them was a charred impression of the cross.

"Henry, _please_," Jeremy begged. "You must allow me to pass."

Henry Abington shook his head. "No. You are not well enough. As your physician and friend, I cannot in good conscience allow you to travel. No."

"But Lafayette. We must help him!" Jeremy frowned, slightly dizzy and completely exasperated. "He is in _deadly_ peril!"

"And how will you getting yourself killed aid the general or prevent this danger?" Henry crossed his arms. He had planted his sizeable frame between Jeremy and the barn door. "No!"

"Henry. You don't understand…."

"Then make me."

Jeremy frowned. If he tried to explain things to Henry the apothecary would add madness to his ailments and most likely sedate him. "I cannot. You must trust me."

"Trust you?" Henry's mouth quirked with a wry smile. "Would _you_ trust him, Isak?"

The black man stood behind them, guarding the barn's rear exit. "I would trust Jeremy to put himself in danger."

"Precisely!" Henry crowed.

"Henry, you are not yourself. Nor you, Isak," he threw over his shoulder. "You are under the influence."

"Of good sound reason! Aye, I will admit that." Henry shook his head emphatically. "Jeremy, go back to your bed."

Jeremy hung his head in defeat. "All right," he said quietly. "I had to try. Actually," he stumbled forward a step, "I _am_ feeling rather disoriented…."

"See? I told you." Henry moved to catch and steady him. "While the knife slipped cleanly through the ribs without causing any internal damage, the blood loss was considerable. You should rest and remain off your feet for some time – "

Jeremy hated to do it – and knew he would have to pay penance in church for some time to come – but he did it anyway. He shifted just as Henry reached for him and ducked. His friend couldn't control his forward momentum and tumbled over him, falling in a heap on the floor –

Creating a barrier between him and Isak, who was barreling forward like a bull on the run.

Jeremy drew a breath against the pain that stabbed him as he righted himself, and bolted out the door into the night. He wouldn't have to get far – just to the tree line beyond and to the blessed shadows that pooled beneath which would shield and hide him. Then he would make his way to Chester – somehow – and go to the town hall and….

And do what? Defeat a vampire single-handed?

Just exactly _how_ did one do that?

He could hear Henry and Isak following close behind him, calling his name and cursing him for his bull-headedness. He knew there would be no end to their pursuit – Nicholas Knighton's voice would be in their ear, urging them on, pressing them forward until they wore themselves out. The only thing he could do was outwait them.

And yet, with each passing minute Jeremy knew Lafayette drew closer to death.

Gaining the safety of the trees was a trade-off. It meant he lost the light of the moon. Stumbling blindly he continued, heading as best he could for the town. Henry and Isak's voices slowly grew more distant, as if they had chosen to follow the wrong trail. The fact that they had brought a smile to Jeremy's lips. Nicholas' hypnotic grip compelled the pair to follow his orders, but it also dulled their senses. Isak would never have lost track of him if he had been in control.

Jeremy paused, gripping his wounded side and panting hard. He lifted his head and looked up for a break in the trees, hoping to get his bearings. The moon was high. It could be no more than two or three in the morning. There were many hours left to the night.

What, he wondered as he began to run, would the light of dawning morning bring?

"This is where I left him. I swear it!" Janette pouted as she crossed her arms and began to tap the toe of one expensive silk slipper in the grass. "Can I help it if your son will not stay put!"

Samuel Larkin was kneeling in the grass. He raised a hand and stared at his fingers.

They were black.

"So much blood," he breathed as he looked up at her. "Is it Jeremy's?"

"How would I know? Do you think I have _tasted _it before?"

"Dear God! Jean, do you drink men's blood?"

Janette watched him pale. Even though Samuel Larkin had connected her with the deaths in England all those years ago, it still had not dawned on him just _what _she was. The possibility of the walking dead was outside of his ken. Ignoring his question, she turned her back on the sight of so much wasted food and stared at the moon which danced high above the clouds. "Perhaps we should return to Chester. Perhaps your son has returned home."

"Jean…."

Janette rolled her eyes and let out a deep sigh. "Now what?"

Samuel's voice trembled. "Did you kill him? Did _you_ kill my boy?"

She spun to face him. Genuinely wounded by the accusation. "No. Jeremy is _your_ son. I could not do that to you."

"Truly?"

Janette stared at Samuel Larkin, remembering the strong, handsome young man she had once loved and left behind. Perhaps it _would_ have been kinder to have taken the boy's life. Allowed to live, _this_ is what Jeremy would become – a shell of his once splendid self, withered with age, an old man cursed with blue-veined skin and thinning hair. "Truly." Janette hesitated and then added with a scowl. "If I could swear on the Bible, I would. But you would not want me to do that. It would probably burst into flame at my touch."

"Who…_what_ are you, Jean?" Samuel asked. "How can you still be young? You have not aged a day since you left."

She smiled as she preened, touching her luxuriant brown hair which was soft and supple as it had been centuries before. "And I never will."

"Have you sold your soul then? Is Lucifer your master?"

"LaCroix is my master," she answered. "And Lucifer would be wise to never challenge _him_."

Samuel Larkin shook his white head as he staggered to his feet. "Eternal damnation is a high price to pay for eternal youth, Jean." His voice was tender and truly sorry for her. "Have you ever regretted your choice?"

A thousand lifetimes LaCroix had offered her. A chance to be a _god_. Who could regret that? Janette looked at him and thought of the other life she might have led – of years spent in comfort by Samuel's side, of days spent walking together beneath the sun, of children – Jeremy might have been hers – and of growing old while holding the hand of the one you loved.

"No," Janette answered softly. "I have never regretted it."

It was a good thing that lying came naturally to their kind.

"We might as well return. There is nothing here," he said as he turned away from her. "Nothing but an empty field and too much blood."

"Samuel, I did not mean – "

A sudden noise silenced her. Her companion turned and looked at her, his eyes wide. Someone was plunging clumsily through the trees, making enough noise to wake those who were _truly_ dead.

"What is that?" he asked.

Janette closed her eyes and reached out with her vampiric senses. It was a man. His tall frame pulsed with the fire of his blood, but it was only a shadow of what it should have been. Seconds before she could put a name to him, the wounded man broke through the trees and fell, literally, at his father's feet.

"_Jeremy_!" Samuel Larkin exclaimed.

Lafayette reared back as the snarling creature reached out and took him by the arm. "You will remove that vile thing!" LaCroix snarled as he averted his eyes from the golden body of Christ. "I _command_ you!"

With trembling fingers Lafayette gripped the crucifix and pulled the chain, snapping the clasp. Then he held the precious relic before him and began to back out of the room.

"No!" he declared. "You have no power over me."

"I have _all_ the power! Do you think the imitation of your god's puny body can stop me? I have walked in churches and killed priests in its shadow!"

"Then kill me now. As you did my father."

LaCroix was breathing hard. He ran his tongue over his lips and grinned wickedly as he tasted his own blood. "No. I mean to make an object lesson out of you for poor remorseful Nicholas. I will _not_ kill you – but neither will I let you go. You will be the instrument by which I crush this puny Rebellion and the upstart nation that dares to throw off the hand of a loving parent. I will use you. I will make you betray them.

"I will destroy their soul!"

"I would die first – by my own hand if necessary," Lafayette declared as he reached the open door.

LaCroix started after him. But then he seemed to think better of it. Instead of pursuing him, or rushing across the room in a rage, he retook his seat at the desk and began to shift papers. "Go ahead. Run," he said, not looking at him. "You will not get far."

The vampire's change of heart puzzled him. "You will not follow me?" Lafayette asked.

"Oh, I didn't say that." LaCroix glanced at the timepiece on the mantel. "But I can be generous. I will give you a five minutes head start."

"Why?"

LaCroix placed his hand son the stack of papers and rose to his feet. "Because, dear boy, after nearly two centuries of existence the chase is the only thrill that remains. Now, go. Run!" The vampire laughed and the sound of his merciless joy chilled Gilbert du Motier's soul. "_Run_!"

He did not hesitate but did as he was told. Gripping the crucifix tightly Lafayette bolted into the empty hall and ran as fast as he could through the building, out the doors and into the tenebrous night. At the end of the street he paused to catch his breath before heading into the shadows beside the bridge. As he hesitated, breathing deeply, a sound caused him to pivot. For a second the lean figure of a man appeared silhouetted in the lamp light. Then he was gone.

Seconds later a hand was clamped over his mouth and he was drawn into the darkness.

"I need you to remain silent," a soft voice said. "Will you do this?"

Lafayette nodded.

"Do not cry out. There is no time to explain."

As the hand came away, he asked, "Who are you?"

The man who held him shifted so the lamplight struck his boyish face. He was blond and dressed as a gentleman. At his throat a ruby stick-pin glittered.

"A friend," Nicholas Knighton said.

Then he pushed off of the ground and bore Gilbert du Motier into the air.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

"Jeremy! My boy!" Samuel Larkin fell to his knees and cradled his son's bloodied form in his arms. "You're alive!"

"Barely," Janette snarled. "What is it with you men? Can you simply _not _stop?"

Samuel's son stirred and looked up at her, his blue eyes wide with pain and puzzlement. "Why?" Jeremy asked, his voice weak. "Why did you do this to me?"

"What?" Samuel asked. "What did Jean do?"

"Tried to kill me." Jeremy shifted. He raised his right hand. It was red with his blood. "She did something to Elizabeth. Mesmerized her…something. She sent her after me with a knife…."

Samuel Larkin's face grew red with righteous anger. "Jean? _You_ did this to him? You tried to kill my boy? Why? Dear God in Heaven, _why_?"

Janette's upper lip curled with indecision. "He is not dead, is he?" was her only reply.

"Jean, why? I thought…I thought we meant something to each other. How could you…."

She could not abide the accusation in his eyes. "LaCroix ordered it. LaCroix is my master. I cannot disobey him," she explained. Then she added softly, "But I can, within that obedience, sometimes do as I desire. The blade went in clean. No?"

Jeremy nodded. "How would you know…."

"Nothing _vital_ was damaged. There was a great deal of blood and it _appeared_ the wound was fatal." She walked to the side of the father and son and looked down, meeting Samuel's puzzled stare. "I could not let your son die. I gave him every chance there was. I instructed the girl and told her to be precise, and…I left him with Nichola." Janette hugged her arms about her slender frame. "I knew Nichola would not kill him. Not even to survive." Janette drew a quick breath. "I meant it when I said it was my worst fear that we would find Nichola's ashes beside your living son."

"Is he like you, this Nichola, some vile unnatural creature? And Lucien LaCroix as well?" Samuel demanded.

"Nicholas is nothing like her!" Jeremy's fierce reply belied his weakened state. "He is an honorable man, Father. You must believe me…."

Janette smiled sadly. "Yes. And Nichola's high and lofty ideals will bring about his destruction one day. Now come, both of you. We must find him. When we do, I am certain we will find LaCroix. They are drawn to one another like the moth to the flame."

Samuel Larkin rose to his feet and then helped his wounded son to stand. Jeremy wobbled and nearly fell down. "I'm sorry," he said as he clung to his father's arm. "I can't…."

"Move away, Samuel," Janette commanded.

"No!" He stepped in front of his son. "You will not touch him."

"Then he will die!" she snarled. Then, softening her tone, she added, "I could have killed him before. I did not. Samuel, trust me. No matter what I am, I mean you and yours no harm."

"What will you do?" he asked.

Janette smiled wickedly. "It will be my pleasure to show young Master Larkin exactly _who _is the weaker of the sexes." She moved forward and, before Jeremy could protest, swept him from his feet into her arms. At his astonished look Janette laughed, and then before his father could stop her, rose into the air and disappeared into the night.

"Hurry to your home, Samuel," she called from out of the darkness. "We will meet you there."

"Nicholas Knighton. Do not tell me that you too are one of the vampiri?" Lafayette asked.

Nicholas nodded. "Much to my regret, Gilbert. Much to my regret."

He had borne Michel du Motier's son through the skies to a small thatched cottage at the edge of the town – one that most likely belonged to a caretaker. Before he had gone to the city in search of the boy Nicholas had made certain careful preparations within the abandoned structure. Everything was in place.

Now they had only to wait for LaCroix to find them.

"Then it _was_ you," Lafayette declared. "The man I remember. The one who spoke to me while I was in my cradle. The man who saved my mother, and then brought her the news of my father's death."

"Yes. The first was a joy, the latter my sad duty – and the last thing I could do for my friend."

"LaCroix said he was there when my father died. Is that true?"

Nicholas hesitated. Then he nodded again. "Yes."

Lafayette felt suddenly weak in the knees. He reached out and steadied himself by gripping the edge of a table where a single lamp burned, spilling a bit of the contents of the large pewter pitcher that rested beside it. Then he sat heavily in a chair and rested his head in his hands. "Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed. "LaCroix said my father's death was long and lingering. That he used a bayonet to pin him to the grass and his pain was great."

"The last is true," Nicholas said. "Michel's wound was grave. But he did not linger. And LaCroix did not kill him." His jaw grew tight. "I did."

Lafayette's head came up. His brown eyes were wide with grief and disbelief. "What? No!"

"Yes. It is true. Your father could not live, Gilbert. But while life remained he was in danger. LaCroix threatened to bring him over – just to cause me pain. I could not allow that. I could not allow Michel to become what I am. A creature of the night. One of the damned!"

"How? How did you kill him?" he demanded.

"Quickly. With a single shot. And then I kept watch so LaCroix could not feast." Nicholas shuddered. "There were many who fell that day. I knew in time he would be sated. Before the light dawned I buried Michel in a shallow grave and, though it burned my hands, marked the spot with a cross."

Lafayette did not want to understand, but the truth was – he did. Even though the child within him warred with the man, he understood Nicholas' actions. In battle he had done the same thing. But this was his _father_ – the father he had never had a chance to know. The father taken from him by one man's evil –

And this man's hand.

Lafayette opened his hand and looked at the crucifix and then held it out before him.

"No!" Nicholas shouted, averting his eyes. "Put that away! I only want to help you!"

"You are evil," Lafayette said rising and advancing toward him. "You are the same as LaCroix."

"No, I am not the same! Gilbert, I loved your father. And your mother. And you as their only son. If you do this, I _cannot _protect you!"

"Perhaps I do not want – or need your protection," he said wearily. "Perhaps _this_," Lafayette thrust the crucifix forward, "is the only protection I need."

"It will not work against LaCroix. I have seen him hold such a relic in his hand and watched it burn through his flesh! He will destroy you!"

"It stopped him before," Lafayette countered.

Nicholas' voice was thick with pain. "If it did, it is only because he allowed it."

"And why would be do that?" Lafayette all but shouted. "Why permit me to escape?"

"So you would lead him to me!" Nicholas lowered his hand, then raised it again when he saw the dreaded cross was still there. "Don't you see? This is not about you or your father, Gilbert. It is about me. It has _always_ been about me and LaCroix's need to possess me body and soul!"

Lafayette hesitated, weighing the other man's words. Then he lowered the crucifix and closed it once again in his hand. "Then you are _truly _damned, mon ami," he whispered.

"Gilbert, you cannot know how hard it – " Nicholas paused. He held his hand up. "Do you feel it?" That drawing sensation, as if all of the air in the room had suddenly been taken in and was being held in anticipation. "LaCroix is here!" he announced. "Gilbert, get behind me!"

"What?" Lafayette spun in a circle, looking. "I see nothing…."

As he spoke without warning the cottage's oiled parchment windows blew in. The heavy wooden door was torn from its hinges and Lucien LaCroix, ablaze with righteous anger and infernal indignation, blew in. "_Nicholas_," he raged, his tone envenomed. "You will give the boy to me!"

"No." Nicholas stood between them. "You will not have him. No more than you could have his father. You will lose this battle, LaCroix, as you did the last."

"I _never _lose, Nicholas. You always come back to me, therefore, I always win." LaCroix's smile was acid. "Battles such as these are merely skirmishes in a greater war which you cannot win."

Nicholas nodded. "Then so be it. But you will not have him. He is not yours to possess. Gilbert belongs to history."

"History," LaCroix snorted. "What has he? A short span of eighty years at most? I can give him ten thousand!"

"I know. But you shall not. Leave, LaCroix. Go now before I am forced to take action."

LaCroix's baleful laughter echoed through the small cottage, curdling the blood in Lafayette's veins. "Take action?" He spread his hands wide and taunted him. "Go ahead then! Do your worst, Nicholas!"

"Gilbert," Nicholas said softly.

"Yes?"

"Shield your eyes."

Almost before he had time to obey Nicholas snatched the pitcher from the table and threw its contents on the other man, soaking his garments. Then he caught the lamp from the table and threw it at the evil creature's feet where it crashed and burned, igniting both the floor and LaCroix. Soon smoke, and the scent of frying flesh, filled the room, tinged with the pungent odor of whale oil.

From his position behind Nicholas Lafayette watched in disbelief as the burning creature that was LaCroix rose in a cloak of flame to crash through the thatched roof and disappear into the dawning light. Sunlight streamed in through the opening in the ceiling and a stray beam caught Nicholas unawares, forcing him to retreat to the opposite side of the room.

Within seconds a growing wall of flame separated them.

"Run, Gilbert! Save yourself!" Nicholas called even as he cowered, shielding himself from the advancing fire. "Soon the entire structure will be ablaze!"

Lafayette glanced at the thatched roof. The flames had taken it as well. Another minute or two and it would collapse in on them. "You cannot survive it, can you? The fire?"

"Do not worry about me. Save yourself! This young country needs you!"

He shook his head. "It would not need me if I was the kind of a man who could allow a good man like you perish without at least attempting to save him."

And with that Lafayette drew a deep breath and plunged into the flames.

Along the path back to Chester Samuel Larkin encountered Jeremy's friends Henry and Isak. They explained that they had been tracking his son and were much relieved when he explained that an old acquaintance of his had taken Jeremy to the house and promised to put him to bed and make him stay there.

If only Jean's actions had brought _him_ some relief.

As they headed together back toward the town, speaking in hushed tones of all the odd and unusual things that had occurred in the last few days, a sudden bright white hot light exploded in the distance drawing their attention. The trio stopped and watched in growing horror as the light intensified and a sudden wind arose, hot as a mid-summer day, to strike them.

"Fire!" Isak shouted.

Samuel Larkin nodded. "From the look of things it is at the edge of town. Jacob Miller's old place perhaps?"

"It has a thatched roof," Henry agreed. "From how fast the fire is growing, I would say that is a good guess. There must be fuel to feed it." He turned to the black man who walked with them. "Isak, run to the town. Summon help."

"What will you do, Henry?" Isak asked.

Henry pursed his lips and turned his face into the growing light. "Whatever we can. Samuel?"

"I'm with you!"

They both were puffing by the time they arrived at the Miller property. Samuel stopped at the edge of it to catch his breath as Henry plunged ahead. As he watched two figures emerged from the conflagration to greet him. The first one, singed, his boyish face blackened, he did not recognize.

The second was Robert's general – Lafayette.

"Your help, please!" the stranger pleaded as he lowered the young Frenchman who had been leaning heavily on him to the ground.

Henry dropped to his knees in the grass beside them. "Is he badly burned?"

"No," Nicholas answered. "But he has taken in a great deal of smoke."

Henry was already opening Lafayette's singed shirt and feeling for his heartbeat. "And you, Nicholas. How are you?"

Samuel Larkin watched the stranger turn and look back toward the Miller's cottage which was now completely consumed in flame.

"Free at last."

Janette rose to her feet at the sound of the door of the Larkin home opening. She was in one of the upstairs bedrooms sitting beside Samuel's son. Jeremy was breathing evenly now. Deep asleep. And at peace.

Due to her suggestion.

She found in his weakened state that he was no longer able to resist her. And even though she could not completely remove the events of the past few days from his memory, she _was_ able to plant the impression that all of the things he had witnessed were nothing more a dream, and the product of his fevered mind.

Crossing the room quickly she headed into the hall and descended the steps just as Samuel Larkin entered the house. He was followed by a young man with a worried face and round glasses who spoke to someone behind him, instructing them to hurry into the house before the light of day dawned. Janette cast her gaze out one of the simple home's windows as she descended the stair. No more than a half hour remained until the dawn. If she did not fly, soon she would be trapped here until the night came again. As Janette's slippered feet touched the floor the last of the party entered.

It was a bedraggled Nicholas, bearing the silent form of Michel du Motier's son in his arms.

"Put General Lafayette in my room," Samuel Larkin instructed as he closed the door behind them.

"It is not safe for him to be here," Henry said, rolling up his sleeves. "Not for the general, or for you, sir."

Samuel nodded. "God has provided so far." Then he turned and deliberately looked at her. "The Almighty will not fail us now."

Janette said nothing. She waited while Nicholas did as he had been instructed and bore the boy up to the second floor. When he returned she crossed to him and took his hands and looked into his eyes. What she found there surprised her.

Nicholas was at peace.

"What has happened?" she asked.

He smiled. "I am free, Janette. Free at last."

"Free?" She stared at him. His boyish face was smeared with soot. His blond hair singed. Nicholas had been near fire – the one thing their kind could not survive. "Nichola, what have you done?" she asked.

"Destroyed him. Destroyed that _evil_."

"LaCroix?" She shook her head. "You cannot…."

"But I have! I set him afire, Janette. I watched him burn!" Nicholas words were spoken with cruel relish. "LaCroix is no more!"

She caught his face in her hands. Janette knew how much he wanted to believe what he said. And for now, she would _let_ him believe it.

It was pure joy to see him happy.

Janette kissed his smoky lips and said, "Then it is just you and I, mon ami. No?"

Nicholas grinned. "Oui." He broke free of her grasp and turned with energy toward the stair just as the portly man with the round glasses descended it. "Henry! How is he?" he asked.

"The general? Awake. Already trying to get out of bed, though every time he moves he is wracked with coughing." Henry finished rolling down his sleeve. "It will take some time for his lungs to heal."

"May I see him?" Nicholas asked, his tone that of a concerned friend. Janette knew better. Nichola's concern was for himself – and for her.

It was time to begin mopping up.

She watched Nichola disappear up the stair. He went to erase their presence in Chester from the young Frenchman's mind, to make him believe – as Jeremy Larkin would – that it had been nothing more than a dream born of fatigue and wounds. Janette reached out with her vampiric senses toward Henry, wondering if the same needed to be done with him. As she did a sharp knock sounded at the door. She saw Samuel Larkin frown. He walked to a cabinet at the front of the house and opened a drawer. Then he pulled out a small flintlock pistol. With a wary glance at her, Samuel went to answer the knock.

The door opened to reveal two dazed and weary humans – the girl, Elizabeth Coates, and a man Janette did not know . He had sandy hair and was dressed in frontiersman's clothes.

"Elizabeth! And you, sir. I remember you. You were in the crowd at Robert's funeral."

The man nodded. "Daniel Boggs. And yes, sir, I was there."

"Come in. Come in," Samuel exclaimed.

"Is Jeremy here?" were the first words out of Elizabeth's mouth.

As Samuel assured her that he was, and was sure to live, Janette watched the girl's eyes stray to her. She smiled and inclined her head. She had planted an order in the girl's head that once she had accomplished her mission – wounding Jeremy – she would forget what she had done and any memory of who and what they were.

"Do I know you?" Elizabeth asked, her face troubled.

Janette shook her head. "I am an old acquaintance of Samuel's. No, you do not know me."

Elizabeth nodded absently as Daniel Boggs began to explain how, suddenly, the British soldiers who held him had collapsed to the ground like puppets cut free of the string. He had been on his way out of the hall when he had heard someone shouting. Following the sound he had found Elizabeth Coates in the jail, and then freed her using the keys off of the guard who had also fallen into a strange sort of stupor. Then they had come to the Larkin's home in search of answers.

Janette watched the sergeant bolt up the stair in pursuit of his wounded commander. Elizabeth followed more slowly, heading for the sick bed of her love. As Nicholas descended, he passed her on the stair. He nodded his head in greeting and then headed for the door. Once there, he called her.

"Janette?"

"In a moment, Nichola. There is something I must do." She turned to look at Samuel Larkin who had moved to take a place before the hearth. "Someone I must tell 'goodbye'."

"The sun is almost risen," he answered. "Do not be long." And with that, Nicholas stepped out of the house and bolted for the shadows that cloaked a nearby alleyway.


End file.
